The issue has now achieved gargantum proportions, and just when it was expected that some sort of agreement had been reached in the crisis surrounding the waste treatment at Sonsoddo, the company undertaking the treatment at the site refused to accept the mixed waste that Margao Municipal trucks were bringing to it, forcing the council to dump the mixed waste at Sonsoddo. Add to this the fact that leachate has begun to flow from the dumped garbage into the drains around Sonsoddo, creating a major health hazard.
This bickering over garbage in Margao has to stop, before it snowballs into an even bigger controversy. The garbage mound at Sonsoddo is already towering over the town and the surrounding villages, just now much more can the land at this spot take? And just how long will this dump continue to haunt Margao and Curtorim? The town’s residents, and floating population, which includes business persons, have a civic duty to sort out the waste at source. Segregation at source is now becoming an international practice, and there is no reason why Margao cannot fall in line too. How difficult is it to deposit the wet waste in one bin and the dry waste in another at home itself? Panjim has been doing it successfully for well over a decade. Margao and all towns and villages in the State should follow suit.
Margao Municipal Council has to act strict with its citizens. Like in Panjim, mixed waste left for collection should not be picked up from people’s doorsteps. That should be a practice with every municipal council and village panchayat in the State, and segregation at source a practice to be mandatorily followed. There has to be some civic responsibility among the people, and it is only when this happens that there can be some success achieved in the waste management in all the towns. If it is the right of the citizens to have their garbage collected by the local governing body, then it is also the duty of the citizens to provide the authority with segregated waste.
This is not an issue restricted to Margao, or peculiar to this town. It has gained prominence because the mound of garbage at Sonsoddo is growing at a fierce rate and there was a fire recently at the dump site. This is an issue that is common across the State, as local governing bodies don’t have a site where to dump garbage or a facility to treat it.
Simultaneously, while the debate has been surrounding Sonsoddo, the municipality of Mormugao is also finding itself caught in garbage problems. In the early hours of the morning, villagers in Balli intercepted a garbage truck from Vasco that was attempting to dump waste at a mining put in the area. A few hours earlier, villagers of Chicalim had stopped a mini truck disposing waste in their panchayat. Such attempts to cladestinely dump waste in rural areas will continue until there is a proper policy in place to tackle garbage, and there are enough management plants to handle all the garbage that the State produces.
The thought process on handling garbage has to change, and the NIMBY – not in my backyard – syndrome that is associated with waste treatment plants has to be forever set aside. At the same time, this cannot become a political issue, with local politicians playing to the galleries. This is an issue that needs to be sorted out at the earliest possible so that Goa can then return to other issues that it is facing.
