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Act tough to ensure waste segregation:

Experts
Civic Body Continues To Collect Mixed Garbage Action Sought Against Those
Who Don't Separate Dry, Wet Waste
The garbage crisis may have been tackled for now, but the much larger issues
confronting solid waste management in the city are yet to be dealt with, say experts.
For 14 years, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has been creating awareness about
waste segregation when it should be penalizing the offenders.
A Supreme Court order had framed rules for handling urban refuse which made it
mandatory for people to practice segregation and ensure that all wet waste was put
inside vermicompost pits and only dry waste is collected by civic bodies. For all these
years the PMC has only been generating awareness about the issue, isnt it time for
them to take some action, said Sheela Krishnan, who has helped several housing
societies in the city set up vermicompost pits.
It is not as if people do not know that they should do. It is just that there is no
punitive action taken against those who do not segregate waste, she said.
Citing the example of a housing society in her immediate neighbourhood, Krishnan
said that whenever she broached the subject she was told that the residents did not
want to go through the hassle, especially when the PMC continues to collect mixed
garbage.
There are all these misconceptions about waste-segregation. People claim it is
expensive or that the compost pits smell, but this is not so, Krishnan said.
Members of housing societies that have implemented a waste segregation and
vermicomposting system echo her views. We started vermi-composting our wet waste
three years ago. Our housing society of 130 flats generates about 70-80 kg garbage a
day. To process the waste it takes about a week so we have seven bins one for every
day of the week and a spare one to keep the dry leaves that are also required, said
Anil Hoshangabade, chairman of the Lunkad ColonadeII housing society.
He explained that at the time of digging the pits, precautions had been taken to
add a layer of bricks and broken glass at the bottom which ensures that rats stay away.
The pits usually fill up in about four or five months
when eventually they are able to collect about 400 kg of manure.
It cost us about Rs 1 lakh at the time of installation, but all residents of the
housing society have received a 5% rebate on their property tax ever since, he added.
Not all vermi-composting projects have to be on a large scale.

In our area we have been able to convince most of the residents to do homecomposting and people have found all kinds of ways of doing it. Some are doing it in
bags, baskets, pots, buckets. Sure, it requires a little bit of attention, but it is not backbreaking work, said Sumita Kale, a member of the Deccan Gymkhana Parisar Samiti.
Kale recalled an occasion when she was conducting a workshop on the issue of
waste segregation and had taken a bag of vermi-compost along to demonstrate.We
had spoken for a full hour with the bag right next to the audience and no one realized
what was in it. It was only when we opened it to show them that there was a monthsworth of rotting garbage inside that they came to know what it was, Kale added.

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