NDMC to expand segregated garbage disposal plan

These bins,marked as biodegradable and non-biodegradable,will be distributed free to all houses in NDMC area. NDMC will also approach non-government organisations to help with the plan.

“Our idea is to do away with street littering altogether,and dignify the act of garbage collection and disposal,” said NDMC Medical Officer of Health,P K Sharma.

“For this,we plan to approach certain NGOs to help us in garbage collection. According to the plan,the NGO will deploy its volunteers for door-to-door garbage collection and segregation,using the two dustbins provided in each house. Thereafter,the garbage will be collected using trolleys and taken to our landfill sites,” he added.

To make the process of categorising garbage easier,lists with names of broad items to be disposed in the bins will be pasted on each of them.

Within the next few months,the civic body will be distributing the dustbins among nearly 70,000-odd households and commercial set-ups in the Capital.

The NGOs will sign Memorandums of Understanding with local resident welfare associations and will be allowed to charge a maximum of Rs 50 from each household.

“The idea is to change the attitude of the residents and instill civic sense. We always tend to have old and broken dustbins kept in the backyard and so garbage segregation never crosses our mind,” said Sharma. “Instead of relying on the residents to initiate the process,we have decided to sell the concept to the residents by giving them free dustbins as incentive.”

The volunteers will also help spread the message of garbage segregation. The NDMC will also give them tricycles and rickshaws to travel from one colony.

The segregated garbage will be disposed by a private agency,Ramky Group,employed by the NDMC. Officials said the segregation plan will be more effective once the civic body’s integrated garbage management plant,which is being developed by the Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services in Okhla,starts functioning by 2010.

NDMC’s garbage segregation plan was introduced in 2002 in the Lutyens Bunglow Zone,encouraging Members of Parliament to be a part of the segregation plan. The plan,however,died because of “lack of interest”,claim officials.