Over three days at the end of this month, serious efforts will be on
to reduce the amount of garbage that is dumped in landfills across the
city.

The BBMP has identified 31 wards where, in phases, solid
waste will be managed properly to eventually become a ‘zero waste city.’

The programme will be launched on Wednesday (May 29) in some wards and the other wards on Thursday and Friday (May 30 and 31).

While
efforts to get citizens to segregate waste began last year when the
pourakarmikas went on a strike, it has not been successful with only a
small population implementing it.

In an effort to motivate people
to segregate waste, the organisers of this programme have also proposed
to the FKCCI to award people for proper solid waste management.

“We
hope by concentrated awareness programmes in each ward, we can get
people to slowly begin segregating waste. We have proposed to the FKCCI
to provide prizes to wards, pourakarmikas, engineers, etc who are
involved in the effort. They have agreed in principle. Also, we will
publicise the achievements of every street, area or ward where we have
achieved perfect solid waste management,” said N S Ramakanth of the
Solid Waste Management Round Table at a workshop organised for
pourakarmikas and BBMP officials.

Each ward is expected to be a zero waste ward in about 45-60 days.

“We
will monitor progress of each ward by calculating the amount of waste
from the ward going to landfills. If proper segregation of waste is
done, there will be a reduction in the amount of waste going to the
landfills,” he added.

At present, the solid waste management is done only in certain pockets of the city.

The pourakarmikas receiving mixed waste will remove some of it that has value like- bottles and plastic.

But
the remaining goes to the landfill. At the workshop, pourakarmikas were
told what constitutes dry and wet waste, what should be done with them
and how citizens are supposed to give the waste.

The wards that have been chosen for the programme already have dry waste collection centres.

As the quantity of waste from these wards reduce, it will be replicated in other wards too, said a BBMP official.