House owners to be encouraged to dispose of wet waste in gardens

Mangalore Today News Network

Udupi, Feb 22, 2017: The Udupi City Municipal Council will encourage people living in individual houses with gardens to dispose of their wet waste in their gardens, beginning next month.

This initiative will not apply to apartments and all individual houses, but to those on the outskirts. It will also extend to areas where there are a lot of individual houses within the city. The objective, besides making people aware of waste segregation and disposal, is to reduce costs and promote optimum utilisation of resources.

The council is targeting about 50 individual houses in Kalmady and about 400 individual houses in Shanti Nagar in Bailoor.

“The wet waste will be manure for their gardens and also for the coconut trees that many grow,” said K. Raghavendra, environment engineer, City Municipal Council. The council will be providing these houses with two bags – one for dry waste and another for hazardous waste. The bags will come with clearly printed instructions on items they can hold. The dry waste bag could be used for items such as perfume and shampoo bottles, plastic containers, cans, leather, and rubber materials. The hazardous waste bag can hold razors, phenyl bottles, chemical bottles, mosquito repellents, old electric and electronic items, CFL and LED bulbs.

The council uses 45 three-wheeler goods carriers to collect waste. Once the scheme is implemented, some of these three-wheelers could be diverted to collect waste from other places.

Dry and hazardous waste can be collected once a week instead of daily. “This will save costs of storing, transportation, processing and disposal of wet waste. We will launch an awareness drive to educate people about this initiative soon,” said Mr. Raghavendra.

Some individual houses have already been using wet waste as manure. The council has begun trials of the initiative. Sanjivi Kadri, a resident of Bailoor, said she is using wet waste for her coconut palms. “I am only handing over dry and hazardous waste to the council,” she said.

Courtesy: The Hindu