Residents allege lack of dedicated waste collection from Covid households

Residents of Mayfield Gardens and South City-2 alleged a lack of separate waste collection facilities for households with Covid-19 patients and raised concerns over the risk posed to the general public as well as sanitation staff

Residents of Mayfield Gardens and South City-2 alleged a lack of separate waste collection facilities for households with Covid-19 patients and raised concerns over the risk posed to the general public as well as sanitation staff.

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SP Thakran, a resident of Mayfield Gardens Block J, said, “Waste from houses where Covid-19 positive patients are isolating is being collected along with waste from other houses, with no segregation. This increases the chances of the virus spreading to other houses and exposure to the person collecting the garbage. Not just this, waste collection is also not taking place on a daily basis.”

SN Bharadwaj, a member of the South City-2 residents’ welfare association (RWA), said, “Waste is being collected regularly, but the separate collection of waste is an issue. Waste is dumped by residents in a common dustbin, from where it is collected. There is no segregation and we do not know how this is being monitored.”

Officials from the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) called on the RWAs to help them ensure that waste from houses where positive patients are isolating is collected separately.

Dheeraj Kumar, MCG’s joint commissioner for Swachh Bharat Mission, said, “Residents need to understand that if they are mixing biomedical waste with household waste, then segregation automatically becomes difficult. We have dedicated vehicles deputed to collect waste from houses where Covid-19 positive patients are isolating, but residents need to also understand that waste should not be mixed.”

“Adequate arrangements have been made by the MCG for cleaning, sanitisation, fogging and lifting of garbage from the houses of Covid-19 infected persons across Gurugram,” said Vinay Pratap Singh, commissioner, MCG.

However, RWA members said that residents who are testing positive for the coronavirus disease are not informing authorities, due to which segregation becomes difficult.

Navin Jha, office in-charge of RWA Mayfield Gardens, said, “Residents are not informing us if they are testing positive, and in such a situation, how are we supposed to inform the garbage collectors to pick up waste from those houses separately? At present, I have information from only three houses, but cases must be more than that.”

YC Bharadwaj, a resident of Mayfield Gardens Block C, said, “Waste from all houses is being collected together. The waste is kept in a single area by residents and then it is collected together, no such separate segregation is taking place.”

Amid complaints from residents, the MCG issued a statement on Wednesday reiterating that Ecogreen, the concessionaire for waste management in the city, has eight dedicated vehicles for this task, two in each of its four zones.

The MCG’s joint commissioner for Swacch Bharat Mission said that the corporation regularly updates Ecogreen of locations where positive cases are being reported, so that waste can be collected separately.

Sanjeev Sharma, the official spokesperson for Ecogreen Energy, said, “We have eight dedicated vehicles for collection of waste from houses where positive patients are isolating, which can be increased to 10 also if the need arises; but residents should cooperate with us and not give mixed waste.”

Mobile phone numbers of supervisors of these vehicles were made public by the MCG on Wednesday.

Ecogreen’s supervisors a call away for waste segregation:

Zone 1 - 7428841966

Zone 2 - 8882231294

Zone 3 - 9319050212

Zone 4 - 8383937376