Hindustan Times 22.09.2010
Segregate the waste, says BMCEven as Mumbaiites gear up for the big immersion day on Wednesday, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has asked citizens to deposit only certain kind of offerings in the Nirmalaya Kalash. The civic body, which is expecting 3,000 metric tones (mt) of nirmalaya, wants to ensure that the city’s composting mechanism doesn’t malfunction.
The appeal from the BMC comes after they have previously found golden articles, ornaments and currency coins unwittingly deposited by enthusiastic devotees in the kalash. And, then there is more than 200mt of plastic that devotees deposit as nirmalaya every single year.
To manage the humongous amount of waste generated after immersions, BMC has opened three additional centers for nirmalaya composting in the city this year. In all, the city would now have 14 centres.
“Every ward in the city has designated centres and trucks, where the collected nirmalaya will be taken for composting. But, since there is no awareness about what exactly nirmalaya is, we end up spending more time and energy simply segregating the waste,” said a civic official. According to a worker from the segregation site in TB Hospital at Sewri, people often dump thermocol and wooden canopies, and plastic cups and bags in the kalash. “People deposit all kinds of decorative items, making our job tougher,” said the worker.
BP Patil, chief engineer, solid waste management (SWM), said, “This festival is a good time for people to initiate segregation of wastes and offer the nirmalaya into the kalash accordingly. This will help us in composting the nirmalaya more efficiently.”
The civic body also plans to have an additional 1,100 vehicles only for waste collection on the immersion day. These vehicles will make about 2,000 trips to various collection points across the city to pick up nirmalaya and other waste.
The bright side, however, to the whole exercise is that the BMC generates at least 500 tonnes of compost from the nirmalaya. This compost is used as a natural fertilizer in most civic gardens across the city.
