Reform Solid Waste Management

Due to rapid urbanization & lack of awareness among citizens Solid waste has become a major problem in urban & rural society.

The amount & type has increased multifold. Effective handling & lifting from the source has become an important step to make the area clean & healthy.

If we study the pattern of waste from last two decades it found that the quantum is increased from wet waste material to dry due to to packaging in plastic which is cheap,strong & provide moisture free environment for the material. until we find the alternative to this, the use of plastic will not stop even by law. The need is to minimize the use and effective collection & disposal of it.

Lest see the wast generation from society.from household the waste is basically food leftovers & plastic packages. We had a common waste bin for a housing colony. Which is always flooding & therefore people just throw the waste near it, sometimes street dogs or cows spill outto find their food.The volume of waste generation is so high that if not picked for one day the people have to hold their breath while crossing the area.In some localities the corporation send "ghanta gadi" to collect the waste but they came in late morning or afternoon whichis not ideal timing or even they are also not regular.

I have seen in some English movies & serials of west. They had polythene bags in their dust bin which holds all the waste. They close the mouth after filling & keep the bags outside their houses.the waste van collects the bags and keep new bag at the door step.the same method is adopted in our office, the waste bins are covered with plastic bag, the housekeeper collects the bag from the bin in the evening & replace with new one, they wash the bag after disposing the waste into it & use it other day; since this bag is made if strong plastic & there are no sharp objects generated in the office the bag withstabd for more than 2 months. in our home there are more sharp objects generated like glass or metal parts ; the bag can be made of strong polyester or nylon fabric . also its possible to encourage the people to collect the sharp objects separately. this is a good method since it simplifies the method & volume. the bags should be strong plastic of higher thickness cleaned after undoing in dumping ground & reused again.

The big waste bins should be placed in front of every shop road side, so the people will drop the litters into.at first some sweepers should be placed for few weeks to stop the people throwing the waste on road & encourage them to put into waste bins.

This method should be adopted for a small locality or town as pilot project & if found effective should be employed for other parts. The merits & demerits, problems should be documented & rectified.

The awareness, ease & very little direct handling of waste made this method reliable. There is one more thing i would like to point about the sweepers & waste handling crew. In India human rights are only for talking term. these peoples work in extremely unhealthy environment.

They should provide proper clothing to protect themselves. a full shirt pant, cap, handgloves, mask on nose & mouth (this will not only help them from dirt but also spare their embarrassment of being recognised of doing this work), goggle of different colour glasses( this will change the colour of waste & they will not feel ugly for handling it), they should provide information & training for waste handling. they should be respected & given special incentives & discount in shopping.