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Waste warriors fight for cleaner Navi Mumbai
Although the civic body has stepped up garbage collection for the Swachh survey, residents of every node have been making sure that their premises is clean and litter-free.
Although the civic body has stepped up garbage collection for the Swachh survey, residents of every node have been making sure that their premises is clean and litter-free.
Residents have adopted ‘My waste my responsibility’ and are handling waste by recycling the non-bio degradable waste generated daily.
Thane-based activist Bhatu Sawant, founder of NGO Samarth Bharat Vyaspeeth, has been helping residents dispose of garbage properly after segregating it.
“We have been actively conducting waste collection for the past three months and aim to rope in more people in the collection drive,” he said.
Sawant said, “We collect all types of waste on the last Saturday or Sunday of every month. The waste is turned into fuel at our unit at Kopri in Thane. Representatives from each node in Navi Mumbai coordinate for the collection drive.”
The residents have formed a WhatsApp group, ‘Navi Mumbai Waste Warriors’, where they coordinate the pick-up and disposal of waste from various nodes.
Although the initiative started around four months ago, the residents have responded well.
“The collected waste is again segregated at the plant. We separate glass, plastic and paper. While the plastic goes in for fuel production, glass and other paper waste is sent for recycling. The fuel generated is used in boilers,” he said.
Vashi resident Suchitra Bhatt has been coordinating for the waste collection drive for Navi Mumbai.
Bhatt said, “Though the civic body collects the segregated waste, we don’t know what is being done with low-micron polybags, chocolate wrappers and other waste. Apart from housing societies many individuals too are contributing towards waste segregation and disposal.”
The four waste collection points in Navi Mumbai are at Sanpada, Juinagar, Vashi and Nerul.
Residents have been collecting 700kg of waste every month and finally aim at collecting one tonne of waste.
While there are four coordinators for each node, more than 700 people are associated with the cause.
Sakshi Patil, a Juinagar coordinator, said, “I came to know about the drive from a WhatsApp group. I created a WhatsApp group for Juinagar with three members and now we have 11 people We go to housing societies and residential and tell them about waste segregation.”
Volunteers explain to the residents about easy methods of waste collection.
“I did not know what to do with discarded glass, slippers, shoes and furniture. I didn’t want these to be end up at landfill. I now go to Nerul every month to drop the waste,” said Dwija Bhatnagar, 33, a Seawoods resident.
Bhatnagar has been processing the wet waste into manure for her kitchen garden.
Tushar Pawar, deputy municipal commissioner (DMC) solid waste management, said, “Whether the residents hand over the waste to us or to an NGO, does not matter as long as garbage is disposed in an environment-friendly manner.”
