With merely 48 hours to go, is Bengaluru ready for its new waste management programme? While it has been reported that there is a lot of confusion among people on garbage segregation and disposal, a number of apartments seem ready to carry out waste segregation and even compost their wet waste.

Deccan Chronicle, which visited a few apartments in the city on Friday, was pleasantly surprised to find them upbeat about the project. While they seemed happy to install composting units for their wet waste, they were also glad to have been given more time to do so by the BBMP.

Pooja apartments on Vittal Mallya Road began waste segregation soon after the recent garbage disposal scare hit the city with villagers refusing to allow dumping in landfills near them.

“There are about 28 apartments in our building. We have separate bins for dry and wet waste in our grounds and people in the apartments have been instructed to segregate their waste accordingly and place them in each. So the waste given to pourakarmikas is segregated already,” says an apartment association member, Ramesh Pujari.

Mr Sujoy Ghosh, who lives in Sterling Apartment near St. Marks Road, reveals BBMP officials visited it recently to demonstrate how waste segregation was done.
“They instructed us to manage the wet waste hygienically using gloves.

We
have placed two huge bins in the grounds of the apartment to segregate waste and also hope to start composting the wet waste soon.

I feel that each one of us should contribute to this initiative of the BBMP to make the city more livable and free of pollution,” he adds.

BBMP remains firm on flat order

Despite the initial row, the BBMP has now decided to remain firm on not handling waste from buildings with more than 10 apartment units.

“Garbage segregation at source is mandatory and non-negotiable. Apartment complexes with more than 10 units will have to manage their waste on their own. But we have relaxed the deadline for these apartments to compost the wet waste.

They will have to install biomethanisation plants or composting units within two months,” said BBMP Commissioner Rajneesh Goel, warning that pourakarmikas will not accept mixed waste from October 1.

“Rules will not be relaxed for bulk generators like apartments, hotels and wedding halls. They have to manage their own garbage,” he said, explaining that nearly 40 per cent of garbage (around 1,500 tonnes) is from bulk generators.

“Wet waste constitutes around 60 per cent of the rest (around 1,500 tonnes) and dry waste, around 30 per cent (about 800 tonnes). Inerts constitute about 10 per cent (around 250 tonnes),” he said.

From Oct. 1, the BBMP plans to send 1,000 tonnes of segregated wet waste to Chintamani, where a private company will process it at its cost. Dry waste will be recycled and inerts dumped in quarry pits. Sites for the scientific disposal of the remaining wet waste will be finalised on Sunday.

While bigger apartments will be on their own, BBMP will help smaller apartments dispose it of for a fee of `18 per unit per month.

“Smaller apartments which don’t have space for composting can hand over their wet waste to BBMP. Each household will be allowed to give wet waste upto 600 gm a day. The resident welfare association can make a monthly payment to the joint commissioners,” he said.

While the BBMP has organised a crash course on segregation of waste for various apartment welfare associations on Saturday at the IPP Centre, it also plans to conduct ward-wise meetings to involve NGOs in spreading the message.

The Confederation of Real Estate Developers’ Associations of India assured BBMP of its support for the new waste management programme when Mr Goel met its state president Sushil Mantri on Friday. “We’ve given them copies of the High Court’s directive on garbage segregation,” Mr Goel said.