Segregate waste at home or be fined, warns Corporation

“We have been trying to make the city zero-waste zone and to attain the target, we need to implement effective source segregation. Though we are imploring the residents to segregate their waste, several residents remain indifferent,” a Corporation official said.

The official added that the decision was taken in a recent meeting and a proposal would be sent to the State government for its approval. However, the official refused to disclose the amount of penalty and said the rates would be finalised only after the government approves the proposal.

Meanwhile, the civic body has been in the process of removing garbage bins from the streets and encourage door-to-door collection as the garbage bins are one of the important factors affecting the implementation of source segregation. A few days ago, Manali zone was announced a bin-free zone.

The civic body expects to achieve 100 per cent source segregation in the city. As per the Corporation data, of the total 14.94 lakh households in the city, only 5.41 lakh houses are doing source segregation, which is only around 38 per cent. To bridge the gap, the civic body, before proposing a penalty, had empanelled waste processing firms to assist residents in recycling and composting waste.

The official explained that of the total 5,000 tonnes of garbage generated in the city every day, around 50 per cent are bio-degradable (wet waste) waste. “If all the organic waste is segregated at household level, no waste would go to landfills. Even dry waste such as rubber, leather, plastic, glasses and others could be recycled,” he added.

Meanwhile, the officials have requested corporate houses to provide battery-operated tricycles under CSR (corporate social responsibility) initiatives to ensure effective door-to-door collection. As many as 790 garbage bins were removed from city streets from January 1.