‘Decentralised solid waste mgmt needed in city’

Mumbai: Experts have said that the “buy, consume and dispose” model needs to go and that there is need for decentralised solid waste management. They have also recommended the need for decentralised processing of solid waste in the city which will help reduce the quantity of waste.

A symposium was held Thursday by the Praja Foundation and Mumbai Vikas Samiti, where experts, activists, citizens and corporators participated and discussed the need to move from centralised to decentralised waste management to achieve the ultimate target of zero garbage.

A discussion was also held on the need for a circular economy saying that the current kind of circle of buying, consuming and disposing should be done away with and instead, the buying, consuming and returning model should be brought in.

“Once the waste is treated at the source itself, it would reduce costs involved in transporting the garbage from one area to another. This will also reduce the amount of waste which is now being unscientifically dumped, leading to air and land pollution,” said Milind Mhaske, director, Praja Foundation.

Two panel discussions were held on current practices in solid waste management and adoption of more effective techniques. Nitai Mehta, founder and trustee, Praja Foundation, said that the idea of having three compartments in solid waste trucks for wet, dry and medical waste was not likely to help much.

“It is difficult to predict which area will have how much of wet, dry and medical waste generated. Therefore, there are chances that if one of the wet waste bins gets full, waste is likely to be dumped in another compartment,” Mr Mehta said.