Dry Waste Collection Centres
The biodegradability of the aluminium foil you use to pack lunch? Zero. Lifespan of a glass bottle? 1 million years. Everyday materials like styrofoam materials, batteries, tin cans, plastic coated milk cartons, nylon, cigarette butts, leather all take varying lengths of time to degrade, and none less than 10 years. With these grim figures, the best way to dispose these items is to simply reuse or recycle them. Nearly 70% of all the dry waste we throw away can be safely disposed this way.
They aim to keep as much waste out of the land fills/ waste dumps as possible and to help make waste useful and profitable. In the process they also educate people about the importance of segregation, and provide safe and hygienic work conditions to waste management workers.
Dry Waste Collection Centres (DWCCs) run by various agencies in Bangalore in co-ordination with the BBMP, are decentralised bulk sorting and processing facilities. DWCCs have been already established in couple of wards of BBMP and are called Kartavya – meaning duty that will remind the public of their duty towards recycling the waste they have created. This will be in their own neighborhood and over a period of time the Kartavya centres will become part of the local community fabric. Physical structure are now are being constructed uniformly to bring in recognition and build a brand that will remind people about segregation, the dry waste and their duty.
Waste managers perform secondary and tertiary sorting of the waste here before finally selling it to recycling centres. Collecting in bulk provides these informal sector workers with larger returns, and creates more jobs.
Dry waste is stored and delivered to the dry waste collection vehicle which is provided by BBMP or its agents or to the licensed DWCC set up on municipal / Government / private lands. NGO’s, RWA’s, SHGs, collectives. Institutions, Trusts, Universities, Companies, licensed recyclers or scrap dealers are appointed as the sole licensed agents of BBMP for maintaining dry waste collection centres and /or operating such dry waste sorting centres.
For SHG’s/Waste pickers who come forward to maintain the DWCC, the deposit amount is Rs.5000/-. A separate MOU will entered into by the BBMP and the operator. In addition, if corporate companies come forward to provide gap funding required under the EPR (Extended Producer Responsibility), A triparty agreement is made to manage DWCC, with a deposit of Rs 25,000/- Such centres also ensure that the recyclable material is sold through properly created channels to ensure that the recycled goods are not misused. The dry waste collected shall pay the pourakarmika /Public/Waste-picker or any individual who bring the waste to the centers as notified by BBMP from time to time, which will encourage the public to segregate the waste at source.
A DWCC is coming up at Varthur soon.
