Public garbage bins on way out in Mumbai, 1,300 will be gone soon

The plan is to encourage waste composting and make the city look cleaner.

If the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) manages to implement what it is planning, you may be able to walk on several streets without having to contend with the stench emanating from the big public garbage bins. The BMC is planning to get rid of the big metal public garbage bins and encourage door-to-door collection of garbage. This system, according to the BMC, will ensure garbage is properly disposed and goes directly to the dumping grounds.

A garbage bin at Jogeshwari in Mumbai. (HT FILE)

While it might seem the new idea may rid the stench around the bins in the city, experts said this system will not work in a city like Mumbai where more than 50% of the population lives in slums.

Around 1,300 garbage bins are planned to be removed in the coming years. The civic body has identified around 2,359 such bins across the city, out of which 1,059 have been identified as ‘cannot be eliminated’. Out of the remaining 1,300, 125 bins will be removed in phases in the next three months. These bins are mostly in slums and in public places like vegetable markets. The plan is to encourage waste composting and make the city look cleaner.

Vishwas Shankarwar, deputy municipal commissioner (solid waste management) said, “Under Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, we are trying to make the city a cleaner place. Many a times, it is found that these public bins are overflowing with garbage and dogs or crows are eating out of them. It also leads to stench and other health issues in the locality.” He also said not all bins will be removed as of now and the plan will be executed in phases. The official added that the bins that have been identified as ‘cannot be eliminated’ are the ones from slums where door-to-door collection is not yet possible as the lanes are narrow and garbage transport trucks are not able to reach them.

This is not the first time the BMC has come up with ideas to reduce waste generation and encourage segregation of waste. Of late, the civic body has been taking efforts to reduce waste to keep the city clean. In 2017, the BMC claimed it would clear garbage within 12 hours after a complaint has been lodged in the Central government’s ‘Swachhata App’. The civic body also came up with the innovative idea to set up four underground bins to get rid of the stink from garbage. Housing societies with more than 20,000 square metre of area were threatened with fines beginning from Rs1,000 for each instance failure to segregate waste. The various efforts of the BMC seem to have paid off as in the Swachh Bharat survey this year, the city secured an overall rank of 18 and was named the cleanest state capital. The city secured an overall rank of 29 in last year’s survey.

However, experts and activists said the BMC’s idea would not really be useful. Chandrashekhar Prabhu, a town planning expert, said, “In a city like Mumbai where more than 50% of the population lives in slums and more than 2 million people live in old dilapidated buildings, it is not possible to replace the entire system with door-to-door collection and get rid of the public bins. There are other cities in the country where such experiments are working but it will take at least another 10-15 years to get rid of the public garbage bins in Mumbai.”

James John, an activist from AGNI (Action for Good Governance and Networking in India), said, “This idea is not a new one, a few years ago too the civic body aimed to remove all the public bins but it proved to be an unsuccessful experiment. What would the people do when the BMC staff is on strike? Also, there are not just householders who throw garbage in these bins but also others, like vegetable vendors. Where will they throw the garbage if the BMC simply removes all the bins? This will create a garbage spot where people will unanimously just throw garbage. Before removing the bins, the civic body needs to bring in an effective system.”