In a bid to reduce the management and financial burden by restricting the quantum of waste from entering landfills/ processing units and minimise pollution as well as the twin-city’s carbon footprint, the Mira Bhayandar Municipal Corporation (MBMC) held a meeting with bulk waste generators (BWG). The BWG’s including-owners of hotels/banquet halls, food catering units, sweet shops, chicken/meat shops, fish sellers, coconut sellers, industrial units and even office bearers of co-operative societies registered their participation in the meeting which was presided by additional municipal commissioner-Aniket Manorkar and deputy municipal commissioner-Sachin Bangar at the civic headquarters in Bhayandar on Wednesday. The Solid Waste Management (SWM) Rules, 2016 defines BWG as entities with an average waste generation rate exceeding 100 kgs per day, including all streams of waste.
SWM rules not only mandates BWGs to adopt on-source segregation and manage the organic waste they produce, but also to maintain a hygienic atmosphere at their establishments and surrounding areas. The civic officials issued a stern warning to the BWG’s to follow the rules diligently or face action under the provisions of the SWM rules, which includes non-lifting of unsegregated garbage and imposition of penal fines on offenders in case of non-compliance.
Apart from the 550 tonnes of garbage, an additional quantity of more than 10 ten tonnes is generated by the twin-city in the form of industrial and bio-medical waste. However, the segregation figures continue to hover below 55 percent which impacts garbage processing as the lone plant in Uttan can only handle segregated waste which is limited to just 150 metric tonnes per day owing to non-segregation.
A significant share in the total waste generation comes from the BWG’s who were also directed to provide colour coded twin-bins for dry and wet waste and refrain from using single use plastic bags which have been banned by the government. Apart from hundreds of fish/meat sellers and sweet owners, there are around 421 hotels, 525 industrial units, 219 coconut vendors and 10 coconut suppliers which fall under the BWG category in the twin-city. BWG’s actions also play a crucial role in determining the future of Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) which aims to make cities “garbage-free”.
