MC begins waste segregation project

Rachna Khaira

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, April 25

Taking a leap forward in waste management, the Municipal Corporation (MC) of Jalandhar today began the waste segregation project in the city.

To begin with, the corporation launched the project in around 30 houses in the Model Town area. The area residents were told to do wet and dry waste segregation in different coloured bins.

Dr Srikrishan, assistant health officer, MC, said though waste was segregated as dry and wet, the civic body had asked its residents to segregate the waste as biodegradable and non-biodegradable.

“The need of the hour is to make people aware and habitual towards segregating waste at the household level itself. Though we have launched the drive in a small area only, we will slowly extend it to other areas,” said Dr Srikrishan.

Segregation of Waste:
Bio-degradable (Organic waste or kitchen waste)

• Vegetables

• Fruits

• Flowers

• Leaves from garden

• Wood shavings, pencil shavings

Non-bio-degradable

• Plastics

• Paper

• Glass

• Metal

• Fruit tetra packs

• Old clothes

• Aluminum foil

Colour coding of waste-bins

• Bio-degradable waste is green

• Non-biodegradable waste is blue

How to do segregation

• Start segregating the waste in your own house now. Segregation is one of the easiest practices to follow; it starts in your own kitchen. The waste can be categorised as wet and dry.

• Take two bins. One, which will have all the wet waste and the other will have all dry waste.

Why is segregation important

• If the waste is not separated properly, it all gets mixed up in landfills. The danger of this is that they all leak after a period of time, resulting in leachate or toxic soup at the bottom, which can contaminate groundwater and release explosive methane gas

• Methane is a greenhouse gas, which ultimately leads to climate change, extreme climates and droughts. We can see the impact already in the world. Segregation protects health. When rag-pickers put their hands into waste to clean it up, it results in cuts that further lead to infections, resulting in the deterioration of their health. It, therefore, becomes our responsibility to help rag-pickers by carefully segregating the waste that is generated in our homes

• When the waste is not separated properly, it leads to less recycling because it is not easy to remove materials for recycling. This means many resources are wasted.

— Source : Chintan Environmental research and Action Group