Composting fails to pique interest of Chandigarh residents

Sandeep Rana

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Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 5

The idea of at-home composting to make manure from the wet waste has failed to click with a majority of the residents.

‘No space in houses’

It is not successful as in small houses, there is no space. What will people do with manure? Not everyone has big gardens. If the corporation is serious about it, it should make people aware and offer some relief to the residents to encourage them.— Hitesh Puri, Chairman, CRAWFED

Only a few individuals living in big houses have been undertaking composting. Four years after the civic body exhorted the residents to build compost pits on their premises, there have been barely any takers for it. The MC, in May 2017, had even offered 10 per cent rebate in the property tax to the residents segregating the waste and building compost pits.

“In the southern societies, there are no compost pits. We have not heard about it from the MC,” said MN Shukla, convener, Voice of Housing Societies, Sector 48-51.

Local composting was aimed at saving the transport cost and manpower of the civic body. “If people make compost pits, it will benefit the city and save residents from the heaps of wet waste at the dumping ground, which could lead to health hazards,” said a resident.

The biodegradable waste was to be used for various purposes, including the production of biogas, electricity and fertilisers.

The corporation had talked of using chemicals to keep foul smell at bay and a few firms were being considered to counsel the residents on composting.

“People are not taking to composting as it did not prove effective. Things such as putting chemicals frequently in the pits did not pique their interest. However, a few individuals are doing it at their own level,” said Mahesinder Singh Sidhu, Senior Deputy Mayor and councillor (Sectors 1-11).

“It is not successful as in small houses there is no space. what will people do with manure? Not everyone has big gardens. If the corporation is serious about it, it should make people aware and offer some relief to the residents to encourage them,” said Hitesh Puri, Chairman, CRAWFED (umbrella body of RWAs).

However, a few RWAs have built compost pits in parks for dry leaves. Even the MC has built 50 compost pits for dry leaves in different parks, but their utility is yet to be assessed. The civic body had earlier sent earthen boxes for composting to their officers’ houses.

“We had to pay Rs2,500 each for the boxes. Manure never generated in them even after we tried. May be some other officer could make use of it, I could not,” said an official.

Indu Verma, who has a two canal house in Sector 32, said: “I have been doing composting for many years. I have two boxes — one earthen and the other is plastic. I put all my wet waste in it. I only put coco peat in it and in a month or two, the manure gets ready and I use it my house’s front and back gardens.”

However, Joint Commissioner Sorabh Arora said: “Some societies in the southern sectors are doing composting. The MC is also doing it with bulk generators.”