Team Herald
PANJIM: Aiming to make Goa garbage-free, Goa Waste Management Corporation (GWMC) on Monday launched an analytical research exercise across panchayats to collect data about the kind of garbage generated by households, clinics, hospitals, schools, colleges, hotels, restaurants, marriage halls and commercial hubs.
Goa Waste Warriors or survey administrators have been handpicked for their people skills to facilitate the answering of a questionnaire about waste generation. The volunteers will also provide bags, stickers and cards for segregation of waste and demonstrating how to dispose waste effectively. Route planning is another exercise being carried out wherein the team will track the logistics of the garbage trucks.
“Goa’s geographic and population profile diversity implies the prevalence of all kinds of waste ranging from traditional municipal solid waste (wet and dry), beach waste, plantation waste, plastic waste, e-waste, bio-medical waste, hazardous waste. With the rise in urbanisation and tourism arrivals, the solid waste problems of Goa rose sharply,” a press note issued by the organization reads as.
“The first step is an exhaustive and incisive field work in the State. We will capture actual garbage generation data on a daily basis across households, offices, restaurants, hotels, industries, hospitals, educational institutions, government bodies and any other bulk generators. The waste will be characterised and chemically analysed to get near 100 percent accurate profile of garbage generated in the State. This will help in drafting model and innovative solutions for tackling the problems of disposal in decentralised and centralised models. Further these solutions will be scalable, hassle free and cost efficient,” GWMC MD Sanjit Rodrigues said.
GWMC is embarking on an ambitious project of first mapping the entire waste footprint of Goa and thereafter coming out with a unique waste management policy which it aspires will be enacted into suitable legislation with penalty and incentive programmes. GWMC has finalised Infrastructure Development Corporation (Karnataka) Limited (IDeCK) as the consultant partner.
