Officials of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) told The Hindu that a spike in generation of waste is witnessed primarily on two occasions — during Ganesh Chaturthi and Ramzan. And with restaurants and eateries doing brisk business in the holy month, the city sees an additional waste generation of up to approximately 300 metric tonnes per day.

“Plastic is used for containers to store or serve edible items. The spoons and bowls, particularly used by haleem outlets, are made of plastic. Then there are those who use use polythene bags to carry food and other items. At times, this poses a problem as waste is dumped into nalas by some people,” a GHMC official said.

Explaining the trends in waste generation, Project Director of GHMC’s Swachh Bharat Mission Soma Bharat said the daily generation of waste ranges roughly between 4,600 and 5,000 metric tonnes per day. “During Ramzan, an additional 200 metric tonnes to 300 tonnes is generated per day. Of this, around 20% is plastic waste,” he said.

Officials said to tackle disposal of waste, the GHMC had a meeting with owners of restaurants and eateries. A circular has been sent to officials instructing them to complete de-silting by May 16 and ensure garbage lifting around masjids every day.

“In fact, it was only last month that we had a meeting with shopkeepers regarding the use of plastic. We are also incentivising the non-use of plastic,” said GHMC Additional Commissioner (SWM-HIMWS and Sanitation) Smriti Ojha.

As many as 14 more e-toilets will soon become operational in Mysuru which was recently adjudged the cleanest city in the country under medium cities’ category. There are 12 e-toilets already existing.

These are in addition to the 41 public toilets and 21 community toilets that were established by the Mysore City Corporation (MCC).

One of the main reasons for increasing the number of e-toilets was the positive feedback the MCC got from the locals.

MCC Executive Engineer Jagannath Jadhav told The Hindu that e-toilets were maintenance-free and functions round-the-clock without the need of an attendant. Any coin can be inserted into the facility irrespective of the denomination for its use. This measure was taken to overcome change problem.

He said the new e-toilets were coming up in places where the density of population was high and also attracts floating population.

One such facility is coming up outside the MUDA Complex near Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa Circle in Ramakrishna Nagar ‘I’ Block.

The locations identified are either commercial or semi-commercial.

Mr. Jadhav said that Mysuru has been adjudged the country’s cleanest city twice and to keep the status alive, a lot of efforts have been put in by us for maintaining the cleanliness of the city. “Restricting public urination was on our agenda and therefore we increased the number of e-toilets to encourage public to use the facility,” he added.

The MCC has been establishing e-toilets from its own funds. Each toilet costs Rs. 7 lakh, he said, adding that there has been demand from the residents and also elected representatives for having them installed in their localities.

“Even the government offices such as the taluk office or the Mini Vidhana Soudha have requested for establishing the facility near the office. This largely addresses the nuisance of urination in public but the support from the public was equally important to realise the vision of Swachh Bharat Mission,” he observed.