Corporation to distribute dustbins for 1,75,000 houses holds by February

With the city already ranked as the cleanest city in India, Mysore City Corporation (MCC) has plans to distribute two dustbins to about 1,75,000 houses in the city by February next year, to segregate wet and dry wastes from household level.

Officials have made arrangements to distribute red and green coloured dustbins of 10 liter capacity each, meant for collecting wet waste in the green dustbin and the dry waste in red dustbins. The wet waste thus collected will be send for composting while the dry waste for recycling. It will be made mandatory for every household to dispose off the garbage separately, which simplifies garbage collection and disposal.

To create awareness among people about the significance of segregation of wastes, Corporation officials are conducting awareness camps near Devaraja Market for Self Help Group's who in turn will visit houses in every locality and impart awareness by providing information and educating the people. Apart this the garbage collectors will also be educated to dump the wet and dry waste separately in specific containers provided to them.

The green dustbin is used to dump wet, biodegradable organic wastes like flowers, fruits, vegetables, garden leaves, left over food, wood or any other organic kitchen waste while the red dustbins are used to collect glass, plastic, metals, e-waste, paper, aluminium foils etc.

With Mysore city spanning an area of 128.75 sq km and inhabited by 9.18 lakh people, the heritage city on an average generates around 402 tonnes of waste every day and most of this waste can be recycled. As residents are mixing all kinds of waste, it is difficult to segregate the mixed waste for recycling.

JnNURM Superintending Engineer Suresh Babu said that the dustbins are meant exclusively for waste collection and should not be used for any other purpose. He said already tenders have been invited from five companies for procuring the dustbins and the MCC has already received the samples from these companies for testing and evaluation.

'Each dustbin costs approximtely Rs 80 – 100, and it will be provided by funds allotted under JnNURM. This new proposal if implemented will aid better handling of Solid Waste Management. At presents garbage is collected together which is of no use. The rule becomes mandatory from February,' he added. Corporation Commissioner KS Raikar said that the process will implemented shortly and people will be made aware to segregate the waste.