Sunday, 10 April | PNS | Dehradun
Amidst the various efforts being taken to ensure proper garbage disposal and also to improve the city’s ranking the Swachchh Survekshan, citizens in various parts of Dehradun point out that the authorities are not yet being able to ensure segregation of waste at the source as required. According to the new Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016 segregation at source is mandated by law. The lack of awareness despite claims of various awareness drives and failure of the authority to ensure measures to enable segregation of waste at source continue to fuel this problem.
College student Tenzin Norbu said that he is able to segregate some waste at home. “We live in the vicinity of a forest near Mindrolling monastery and biodegradable waste like fruit and vegetable peels and leftovers are mostly consumed by monkeys. And coming to wet food waste, we do not know many measures to compost it as our home lacks space and if we try to make compost out of it, it starts smelling foul.”
A resident of the Defence Colony area, Neelima Negi said,”The staff of the private company which has been contracted by the Municipal Corporation of Dehradun to college garbage from homes refuses to carry segregated waste stating that they do not have any facility to carry it till the waste management plant site. Due to this we have made a pit in our backyard to compost our biodegradable kitchen waste. Earlier when we used to give them segregated waste in different packets, they used to mix it all together. So now we have to resort to individual efforts.”
Student Amandeep Shah also was unable to segregate waste at home attributed it to lack of consensus within the family. “There is a lack of knowledge on how to segregate waste so the intent also lacks due to less awareness of its impact on the environment. And even if people are successful in managing waste at home, they do not get to know if it is being treated the correct way at a later stage. Despite MCD claiming to be undertaking awareness drives and other measures, I don’t see any measures on the ground. No one ever came to our locality to educate people on the matter and hence everything goes unchecked,” he added.
Homemaker Kashmir Kaur believes that there has been lack of awareness on the matter hence she too puts all her trash into one bin. “No one asks us to segregate waste, then why would we? And nobody believes that waste shall be segregated since non segregation isn’t fined or discouraged,” she said.
