Garbage to gold: Chhattisgarh's Ambikapur to become first dustbin free city

Swatch Bharat in action!
[h=1]Garbage to gold: Chhattisgarh's Ambikapur to become first dustbin free city[/h]Rashmi DroliaAmir Khan would have been drawing criticism for expressing his thoughts over intolerance in country but the seed he had sown through his show Satyamev Jayate has started yielding results in Chhattisgarh's Ambikapur district that's all set to become first municipal corporation in country to digitize garbage management, make the city dustbin free and convert 'garbage into gold' by employing poor women.
|

AIPUR: Amir Khan would have been drawing criticism for expressing his thoughts over intolerance in country but the seed he had sown through his show Satyamev Jayate has started yielding results in Chhattisgarh's Ambikapur district that's all set to become first municipal corporation in country to digitize garbage management, make the city dustbin free and convert 'garbage into gold' by employing poor women.

Inspired with the model, Chhattisgarh urban development department has decided to replicate the project across the state giving a boost to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's dream of Clean India Mission.

The idea of converting garbage into resource might not be new but succeeding in implementing it is an achievement as 28 wards in Ambikapur city have become totally dustbin free and come January 26, the city goes 100 percent zero waste in all its 48 wards.

"A city with no dumping yard will be first in Chhattisgarh to come into existence rather, the present space of dumping yard on land of 17 acres would be converted into botanical garden by February 20. Gone are the days of jammed drains filled in filth, there are no community dustbins oozing out smoke on roads either," says Surguja collector Ritu Sain adding that the city will no more suffer from ailments due to unhygienic, insanitary surroundings.

C.Srinivasan of India Green Service, Vellore who is the founder of this Solid Liquid Resource Management (SLRM) project was contacted by Ambikapur district administration in 2015 after he presented his ideas on sanitation and full-proof garbage management in Satyamev Jayate, Sain told TOI.

Beginning from the red and green boxes

On analysing the expenditure municipal corporation was spending towards sanitation was constantly mounting with no satisfaction or results. In 2013, 2014 and 2015 corporation had spent Rs 490, 523, 551 lakhs that was mind-boggling to see no results.

Beginning from Ambikapur city, Surguja collector Ritu Sain took lead and lined up municipal corporation, arranged for training, general awareness with participation of citizens, selection of needy women from self-help women groups.

The garbage segregation begins from home through red and green boxes given to each house. Red box contains inorganic like paper, cardboard, plastic, electric wires, glass, metal, rubber, bottles, foot-wears and green box contains organic waste like vegetables, garden leaves, meat leftovers, food, coconut, tea and wood. Sanitary pads and diapers are supposed to be covered in paper and kept in red box which would be buried for permanent disposal.

Segregation

Segregation that already begins from home with is brought to SLRM sheds. Recyclable, organic and non-recyclable items are packed separately after segregation and sent to central treasury for tertiary segregation of plastics, metal and electronic items and are then sold as raw materials for recycling to manufacturers, the administration has tied up with.

Organic waste like leftovers are fed to cattle, ducks and hens at centres while other remains is used in bio gas digester and composting.

Inorganic waste has 17 categories and several sub-categories of paper, plastic, electric goods etc that are sold for recycling to manufacturers at Ambikapur and Raipur.

Digitization of Garbage

Making best use of technology, the supervisors of each garbage collecting team have been given a tab and blue-tooth printer at SLRM centres who uploads info on quantity of garbage collected separately on solid and liquid form. A receipt is issued by server and is printed on the spot. Statistics about staff, individual user, area, category of waste, daily collection of waste and user charges etc is always available in the server.

According to the data being maintained by district data centre total 140.6 tons organic waste and 124.6 tons inorganic waste has been collected till date that has worth nearly Rs 4 lakh.
Women of below poor line were trained three rounds with the help of co-operative societies.



Each tri-cycle rickshaw used for collection has a team of four women that comprises upto 250 women employees for the present work while the number would expand to 351 once project spreads its wings across all wards from January 26.

[h=2]Each tri-cycle covers 300 families with fees ranging to Rs 50 from houses, Rs 100 from shops, Rs 500 from hotels, Rs 1000 from hostels & ashrams. Adding the waste recently sold in Rs 3 lakh, women earn nearly Rs 8000-9000 with state government holding support till project gets stabilized.[/h]





Talking to TOI, Luvkush Singraul, commissioner Ambikapur corporation: SLRM was initiated in support with Rs 1 lakh from each corporator of 48 wards. Playing important role they assist women groups in 100% garbage collection from each house and encourage people for participation. The project has given employment to poor women for all 30 days.


C. Srinivasan, said,"Mere broom stick and bamboo sticks wont clean India of polluted ponds, heaps of garbage and jammed drains. This project at Ambikapur is coming out very well on parameters of Swachch Bharat mission and while Chhattisgarh is expanding it to other parts of state, it needs to be replicated across nation for real clean India."

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...-Ambikapur-to-become-first-dustbin-free-city/

Nice article, Lalitji.

In one of multi storeyed apartment in bangalore where my son resides, suddenly woke up and decided to have garbage management facility giving green and red boxes

to its residents as a first step for separation of waste.However when they approached the builder for large sized garbage bins for emptying the boxes, he builder entered

into an argument on colour of the bins and supplied bins of yellow and blue . He said this is in keeping with the aesthetics of building. Now the residents have come out

with a plan of wrapping the bins with thin material of red and green....A bright idea to have sticker that yellow is red and blue is green was considered.Issues like who

will drop the waste from boxes home in the bins was hotly discussed. Husbands going to offices were identified to be the best persons to do the job as early morning

only they go out of flats and wives are busy cooking and other home jobs. The need for training maids home to do the job was also hotly debated as to who will train

them. Then later on how to appropriately deal with residents who mix up waste was considered. Other interesting topic , what to do about tenants who go go away

with the garbage box when they vacate flats.These boxes were distributed free but I understand they were bought for Rs261 each against market price of Rs470 .

They were pretty attractive worth pinching.

The association president with bright eyes explained how he will convert the garbage into compost and separate valuable items which he would sell .

There are many senior citizen who have nothing to do in evening years.

This one has decided to give his valuable time to society for managing garbage

prasad1 said:

Nice article, Lalitji.

Click to expand...

Thank you, Sir!

krish44 said:

In one of multi storeyed apartment in bangalore where my son resides, suddenly woke up and decided to have garbage management facility giving green and red boxes

to its residents as a first step for separation of waste.However when they approached the builder for large sized garbage bins for emptying the boxes, he builder entered

into an argument on colour of the bins and supplied bins of yellow and blue . He said this is in keeping with the aesthetics of building. Now the residents have come out

with a plan of wrapping the bins with thin material of red and green....A bright idea to have sticker that yellow is red and blue is green was considered.Issues like who

will drop the waste from boxes home in the bins was hotly discussed. Husbands going to offices were identified to be the best persons to do the job as early morning

only they go out of flats and wives are busy cooking and other home jobs. The need for training maids home to do the job was also hotly debated as to who will train

them. Then later on how to appropriately deal with residents who mix up waste was considered. Other interesting topic , what to do about tenants who go go away

with the garbage box when they vacate flats.These boxes were distributed free but I understand they were bought for Rs261 each against market price of Rs470 .

They were pretty attractive worth pinching.

The association president with bright eyes explained how he will convert the garbage into compost and separate valuable items which he would sell .

There are many senior citizen who have nothing to do in evening years.

This one has decided to give his valuable time to society for managing garbage

Click to expand...

Thanks for sharing the efforts of a senior citizen! Some others have engaged in Vermiculture for making valuable compost from the bio-degradable garbage!

Bangalore is showing the way. for the past 5/6 years, all new complexes are to have compulsorily rain water harvesting, waste segregation, sewage treatment plant and garbage composting unit and also water filtration plant etc. those who install these are only given OC after through inspection. For the older buildings and smaller complexes also they are devising some sort of mechanism. Very soon all other states may have to follow.

Organic waste like leftovers are fed to cattle, ducks and hens at centres while other remains is used in bio gas digester and composting.

Click to expand...

The scheme to feed cattle, ducks and hens with leftovers in organic waste is risky because it may cause various diseases to the animals. It is better to use all organic waste to produce bio-gas and composting.

hi

here in USA....many private companies are running garbage business....they are all doing welll...they make a lot of money....

i see a recent ad in USA....they doing septic tank business....cleaning septic tanks in some counties here in USA....

i saw a nice ad in their septic tank truck.......WE ARE NUMBER ONE IN NUMBER TWO BUSINESS....any body got meaning?..