Mumbai: BMC to take waste pickers’ group on board for waste segregation at Deonar

At least 50 waste pickers will be identified and verified to officially segregate waste at the Deonar dumping ground

Almost five years after Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) disallowed waste pickers from entering the Deonar dumping ground, following a series of fires to garbage mounds in the dumping ground in 2016, it will take them on board for waste segregation at Deonar, and at four refuse transfer stations — Mahalaxmi, Kurla, Gorai, and Versova.

Deonar dumping ground.

At least 50 waste pickers will be identified and verified to officially segregate waste at the Deonar dumping ground, and 25 waste pickers will be identified for segregate waste at each of the four refuse transfer stations. BMC is tying up with non-commercial organisations working with waste pickers to facilitate this. It recently invited an expression of interest inviting registered waste picker organisations, to tie up with BMC on a non-commercial basis for the project.

A senior official from the civic solid waste management department said, “With this, we want to create a form of employment opportunity for this informal sector workforce. We will not be paying the organisations any money. It will be the task of the organisations to transport the segregated waste to recyclers.”

Presently, waste is supposed to be segregated at the ward level. BMC has a waste to energy plant at the Kanjurmarg dumping ground. About 600-700 metric tons (MT) of municipal solid waste (MSW) is received at the Deonar dumping ground, 600 MT of MSW is received at the Mahalaxmi and Kurla refuse transfer stations, 400 MT of MSW is received at the Gorai refuse transfer station, and 300 MT of MSW is received at the Versova Lagoon refuse transfer station.

The waste picker organisations which will come on board with BMC will be responsible for removing and transporting segregated dry or non-biodegradable waste daily to recyclers and providing safety gear to the waste pickers.

Between January and March 2016, a series of large fires were reported inside the Deonar dumping grounds, prompting BMC to take up several security measures included fortifying the entire periphery of the dumping ground premises with high concrete fencing, installing CCTV cameras, and disallowing waste pickers from entering the dumping grounds for segregation and collection of waste.

Over the course of one year after the fires, BMC decided to issue id-cards to waste pickers to allow them entry into the dumping ground premises, but the decision did not materialise at the time.