What ails door-to-door Waste Collection?

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Various municipal bodies and panchayats in the State are laying stress on door-to-door collection of garbage. The citizens have been advised to segregate the waste and hand it over to the garbage collectors. In this respect, in order to stop the people from depositing the garbage in the garbage bins, the bins have been removed from the roadside. But however it appears that the scheme has not been a success in several places as envisaged. There could be several reasons for people not cooperating with the authorities as expected? 
There should not be any break in the collection of garbage. If the garbage collector does not appear for even a day, people will not store the garbage in their homes but rather dispose it in the open spaces which have now become black spots. Garbage should be collected even on weekends and holidays. Recently Santa Cruz village was reeling under garbage crisis, as heaps of garbage was lying all around due to the stoppage of waste collection by the panchayat authorities. It is understood that the garbage collection was stopped as the Goa Waste Management Corporation (GWMC) had stopped accepting waste from Tiswadi Panchayats. Chimbel had also stopped it’s door-to-door collection drive against the backdrop of refusal of it’s waste at the Saligao Waste Treatment Plant. 
Sudden halt of waste collection can put the citizens in a quandary as they will not know where to dispose-off their garbage. There needs to be a specific time when the garbage collector should do the rounds. Citizens cannot be kept waiting for the garbage collector who may come at any time of the day. At times people may not be at home when the garbage collector comes along. Citizens cannot keep the garbage at the doorsteps as the stray cattle and stray dogs will rummage through it and spread the garbage all over the place. Many people may not segregate the garbage into wet and dry waste. Some may not even be aware of the need to segregate the waste. Awareness needs to be created in this respect. Different coloured garbage bags need to be available for wet and dry waste. Frequent change in the garbage collectors can also cause problems as a different garbage collector may not be aware the houses from where the waste has to be collected. In foreign countries the segregated waste is deposited in garbage bins of different colours for dry and wet waste which are placed at a pre-determined place so that the people can deposit the waste as per their convenience. The garbage van then comes along and empties these garbage-bins.
 If the authorities fail to collect the waste from the homes every day, the citizens cannot be blamed for not cooperating with the civic authorities. The entire procedure of the door-to-door collection of waste needs to stream-lined so that it functions smoothly. For this the civic bodies need to first make proper arrangements to dispose-off the garbage that is collected so that there is no repeat of the crisis that occurred at Santa Cruz and Chimbel.
Herald Goa
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