Garbage must be segregated
Even as the city of Margao looks forward to the signing of the concession agreement between the Margao Municipal Council and Fomento, which will set into motion the plan to dispose off the city’s solid waste by scientific treatment, many issues hang in the balance. One of them is the proposed door-to-door garbage collection system, which the municipality wants Fomento to start on a trial basis in two wards – one in Fatorda and the other in Margao.
While door-to-door collection is very desirable, if done wrongly it can cause bigger problems than it solves. To avoid such situations, it is best that Margao Municipal Chief Officer Prasanna Acharya carefully study the implementation of the binless garbage scheme in Panjim, which has been very successful.
In fact, Margao has a huge advantage over Panjim in that it actually has a garbage treatment site, at Sonsodo. Panjim doesn’t. The state capital has been struggling to find one over the past few years. But despite not having a permanent garbage treatment site, the Corporation of the City of Panjim (CCP) has managed – for the most part – to keep garbage off its streets.
The one and only reason for this is garbage segregation.
Many years ago, when a new, scientific garbage collection scheme was introduced in Panjim, the city’s households were trained to segregate their garbage. While wet garbage was collected everyday, dry garbage was collected only twice a week. This made treating the garbage much simpler.
Wet garbage can be composted. Today, Panjim has dozens of neighbourhood composting stations. The bulk of the garbage generated in Goa is wet garbage. If this is not contaminated by plastic, paper, glass, metal, coconut shells and husk, it can be swiftly, safely and conveniently treated through composting. Simultaneously, dry garbage that is not sullied by vegetable scraps, fish and meat waste, used tea leaves, etc, can be easily sorted for recycling. This makes both wet and dry garbage much easier to handle and dispose of. The net result is a cleaner and less smelly city.
It is not enough, therefore, that the Municipality engages either Fomento or any other outfit to start door-to-door garbage collection in Margao. What is needed is a garbage segregation system that will make the city’s waste easy to dispose. It will also make citizens more conscious about the garbage they generate. Let this garbage segregation and door-to-door collection system be started on a pilot basis in two wards. Once it is successful, it can be gradually extended to other wards.
Nobody needs to re-invent the wheel. There is a successful model presently operating in Panjim, which can easily be replicated in Margao. Even the officers who set up the garbage segregation and bin-less, door-to-door collection scheme in Panjim are still working in the government, and can be called upon for consultancy and advice.
What is needed is political will.
License to kill?
Would the mythical James Bond have ventured to gamble on a ship with no trading license, regardless of how ‘Royale’ it may have been? The odds are simple. A ship with no trading license is ineligible for grant of a casino license. Case closed. Then why is everyone trying to pass the buck, instead of making at least a ‘token’ attempt to enforce the law? The ship is anchored in his waters, but the Captain of Ports has passed the buck to the Home Dept. Even though it is the licensing authority, the Home Dept has sent it along to the Law Dept.
So are we all going to wait until the Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) passes the buck to the Goa Police?
