BMC To Fine Mumbai Societies Failing To Segregate Waste

Is your housing society not segregating waste before dumping it? Get ready to pay a hefty fine as the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation now plans to penalise such housing societies across the city.

Under the Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016, it is mandatory to segregate waste at source to convert waste to wealth, through recovery, reuse and recycle. The aim is to segregate waste at source to reduce the amount of waste reaching the dumping sites in the city. The BMC has directed waste generators, both small and big, to segregate waste into three streams before giving it to the collector. This would allow different type of waste to reach their designated destination either for recycling or dumping.

It was in November 2017 when the BMC stopped collecting wet waste from housing societies generating over 100-kg waste or are spread in an area of more than 20,000 square metre, implementing the Section 368 of the Mumbai Municipal Corporation Act. Such large waste generators were also asked to treat waste at source by setting up of organic waste converter, vermicomposting or bio-methanation facilities. While these large waste generators were being penalised for violation – not segregating or processing waste at source – the BMC now plans to go after the smaller housing societies, too.

According to deputy municipal commissioner for solid waste management Vishwas Shankarwar, the segregation rate of waste in the city has gone up from 53 per cent in 2017 to 65 per cent in 2018. This has helped the BMC to reduce daily waste creation by 2,300 metric tonne (MT), and number of waste collection vehicles by 120. Going further, by the end of 2018m the BMC plans to reduce the number of collection by 70.