Door-to-Door

Waste Management with

People’s Help

Mrs Almitra H Patel, Member

Supreme Court Committee for Solid Waste
Management in Class 1 Cities in India
almitrapatel@rediffmail.com

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 The best way to keep streets clean is
not to dirty them at all.
Start with DIRTIEST AREAS FIRST!
Focus: Remove one ‘dark spot’
per Ward per week.
Use media to Highlight Successes.

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 So the law of the land now is: daily
doorstep collection of wet wastes for
composting, dry wastes given separately

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 DO NOT MIX “wet” kitchen
waste separate, and “dry”
recyclables: paper, plastic, cloth

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 Citizens can help by keeping
“dry” waste out of kitchen waste

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 Only kitchen wastes need daily
collection, in our climate.
‘Dry’ wastes can be collected weekly, as
we save newspapers and bottles. Thin
plastic can be stored in a bag on the wall.

Rajasthan towns can and should pass rules

for this: daily collection only of
UNMIXED kitchen waste, flower and
fruit waste and biodegradables.
That is how wastes can be minimised.
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 Keep SEPARATE TIMINGS for
collecting ‘wet’ & ‘dry’ wastes
Citizens cooperate very well if:
• Timings are Punctual and Regular
• They SEE their Unmixed ‘wet’ and ‘dry’
being transported separately
• There is a Hot-line for problem-solving and
airing grievances
• There is some Reward for Good Behaviour
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Kitchen waste is low in volume.
It can be composted at home

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Or collected door-to-door at fixed
times from each area.

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Take only the kitchen waste to a
‘bio-bin’ for local composting

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 This Chembur bio-bin replaced an
overflowing dumper placer. Now residents
grow a garden to keep that same area clean.

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 This bin serves 126 households and
provides additional income to 3 persons
for 1 hour a day work: 1 collects, 1 cleans
drains, 1 manages the bio-bin, 1 is a mali.
Compost is ready in a month for use.

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 The compost is used for street
beautification, even in very little space
and has improved property values.

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 ‘Mera Aangan Saaf’ policy keeps
drains clean, prevents flooding and
saves desilting costs too.

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 Decentralised composting & mali costs
are easily met from savings in transport.
We must share these savings? How?
1/3 to local composting community to spend at
their discretion for street lights, potholes or
reduce their monthly contribution costs.
1/3 to LSG to pay for more such bio-bins, esp. in
‘unmanned’ areas.
1/3 in future to transporters who cooperate in
unloading only wet waste in local bio-bins?
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 Park and Garden wastes can be
composted on-site or used as fuel
or sent to cremation grounds

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Market waste is easy to compost
or vermi-compost, as here in a
Mumbai pumping-station space.

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“Dry” recyclable waste can be
collected weekly in larger carts

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 Moholla or City must provide
space for Collecting and Storing
“dry” recyclable wastes

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Also space to collect truckloads
of dry waste for shipment out

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Otherwise it will encroach on
roads or even riverbeds

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 MINIMISE WASTE
TO LANDFILLS, which are costly to
prepare and to operate!

City and State should have targets, like EU,

for annual reductions of waste transported.
Reduce present 470 grams per capita to 200,
then 100, then 50.
Landfills cannot be eliminated but one can try
for Zero Waste, like Suryapet in AP, which
DOES NOT MIX MALBA WITH KOODA
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MINIMISE TRANSPORT COSTS!
INERTS like construction waste, naali and
drain silt, road diggings and sweepings
must never be mixed with garbage.
So PAY by VOLUME, NOT by WEIGHT!
Collect INERTS IN A SEPARATE TRIP
for useful disposal: ravine-filling, gully-
plugging, flood-control, road shoulders.

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PAYMENT BY WEIGHT COSTS CITY
& TAX-PAYERS TWICE OVER!
It encourages mixed transport which makes
composting difficult and RDF a failure.

Another cost for needless expensive filling of

landfill with mixed inerts instead of using them.

If landfill cover is needed, TRANSPORT &

STOCKPILE INERTS SEPARATELY ON
SITE for daily cover. For final cover, mix
compost rejects with soil to support vegetation.
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