MARGAO: “Goa is facing a trash wave and we need to ride this wave and reverse it,” said Sanjit Rodrigues, the managing director of Solid Waste Management Corporation (SWMC).
He was speaking at the session on Swach Bharat Mission at Ravindra Bhavan, Margao, on Wednesday.
With the help of a power point presentation, he explained how the change in lifestyle has worsened the problem. “From the home made culture, we have shifted to readymade culture which creates garbage,” he said.
Besides, he pointed out that the earlier habit of repairing footwear has been forgotten and instead we are opting for disposal culture due to which footwear is found in all water bodies including rivers and the sea.
“I have seen ramponkars in Colva removing more garbage from the nets than fish,” he said adding that cows in Goa are dying due to plastic accumulation in their stomach and even fish in the sea is dying due to plastic.
He suggested segregation of waste in four categories namely paper and cardboard in one category, plastic in another, glass and metal in third and finally non-recyclable.
Pointing out that the government is tackling secondary collection, transportation and scientific disposal of garbage, he appealed to the panchayats to only deal with door to door segregated waste collection.
The corporation has all the material to even carry out training and awareness programmes, he said.
Stressing on the need to constitute garbage management committees, he said the Corporation would depute one official who would help five panchayats, prepare their garbage management plan and also collect the data to prepare the plan.
