Margao Municipal Council Waste Management

An

Assignment

In

Environment Studies
Submitted by

Group 2
Warren Colaco Odilia Dias Staycy Dsouza Oswinda Gomes Cliff Gonsalves Mustafa Hamidi Mohammed Ayaz R-11-03 R-11-07 R-11-08 R-11-17 R-11-19 R-11-20 R-11-36

Department of BBA Rosary College of Commerce & Arts 2011-2014

Civilization began and developed everywhere. Things were manageable at those times as people lived in harmony with nature. Industrialization changed everything. At the end of the 19th century the industrial revolution saw the rise of the world of consumers. Concentrated population packets developed at and around industrial area. Rapid Urbanization process posed many challenges before planning authorities. Government, local administration tried and is trying their level best to provide all basic amenities to this population. While doing so, one difficult challenge before administration is to manage waste generated by this large population. Waste generation is a continually growing problem at global, regional and local levels. Solid waste can be defined as any solid or semi-solid substance or object resulting from human or animal activities, discarded as useless or unwanted. It is an extremely mixed mass of wastes, which may originate from household, commercial, industrial or agricultural activities. The municipality collects all type of waste as Industrial Waste, Hazardous Waste, Bio-Medical Waste and Electronic waste (E-waste) depending on their source & composition. It consists of organic and inorganic constituents which may or may not be biodegradable. On the other hand, some of its toxic and harmful constituents may pose a danger if not handled properly. Source reduction, recycling and composting, waste-to-energy conversion facilities, and land filling are the four basic approaches to waste management.

Type of waste collected by the municipal council

Municipal solid waste includes mostly household waste (domestic waste) with sometimes the addition of commercial wastes, construction and demolition debris, sanitation residue, and waste from streets collected by a municipality within a given area. This type of waste broadly categorized into five broad categories as Biodegradable waste: food and kitchen waste, green waste (vegetables, flowers, leaves, fruits), paper (can also be recycled). Recyclable material: paper, glass, bottles, cans, metals, certain plastics, etc. Inert waste: construction and demolition waste, dirt, rocks, debris. Composite wastes: waste clothing, Tetra Packs, waste plastics such as toys. Domestic hazardous waste & toxic waste: medication, e-waste, paints, chemicals, light bulbs, fluorescent tubes, spray cans, fertilizer and pesticide containers, batteries, shoe polish. The Margao Municipal Council has a total of 13 vehicles out of which 7 are compactors and 6 are truck. The garbage waste collected by the municipal is from in and around the Margao area and Fatorda. The number of employees engaged in garbage collection is around 65-70 employees, while in each truck there 4-5 employees who go to collect waste every day. The timing at which the employees go to collect waste is from 6:30 am to 11:00 am and 2:00 pm to 5:00 pm. Every day the municipality collected around 70 tons of waste in a day.

Collection
Collection of waste from different places in and around the Margao area comprises lifting and removal / passage of waste material from the source of production to either the point of treatment or final disposal i.e. at Sonsodo. Collection includes not only the gathering of solid waste, but also the transport of these materials, after collection, to the location where the collection vehicle is emptied at Sonsodo.

Process at the Margao Municipal Council

Stage I: Collection from Non-point Source: This stage includes door-to-door collection of waste. Most collection is done by garbage collectors who are employees under contract to the government. Garbage collectors employed by municipality manually collect the waste generated at the household level and dump it in the community bins at specified street corners. Municipality is not responsible for door to door collection of waste from houses, offices, small shops and small markets. Here people are required to deposit their wastes in communal containers/ community bins from which it is collected by municipal crew. Stage II: Collection from Point Source: Waste collected from non-point source is deposited to definite point sources namely communal bins provided by the municipality or the Zilla Panchayat. Communal bins are placed near markets, in apartment complexes, and in other appropriate locations. Public places like gardens are other definite point sources. Vehicles collects large amount of waste from these point sources and then transport it to Sonsodo. Manually or mechanically loaded compactors are by the municipality. Placing communal bins at appropriate locations for deposit and storage of waste is important to manage waste properly. The garbage is lifted from the particular places on a regular basis because if not collected garbage pile up & create other problems. Stage III: Transportation to Disposal sites: Transportation of waste from collection point to disposal sites is carried out by using compacts or trucks depending on the distances to be covered by them. The waste collected every time is disposed at Sonsodo. The vehicles collect the waste and makes trips 25-30 times to Sonsodo in a day collecting 70 tons of waste a day.

Issues faced by the Margao Municipal Council:

Segregation of waste: The waste dumped in community bins is a mixed type of waste, i.e. all types of waste biodegradable, recyclable, inert & non- biodegradable waste is found in one bin, which become very hard to manage. Varity of waste material generally found in a dustbin.

Biodegradable waste Non-Biodegradable waste

Organic Used tea powder Egg shells Fruit peels Bones Flowers House dust Paper Meat Recyclable waste Rubber Shampoo bottles Glass Metal objects Plastics Rags Leather Inorganic hazardous waste Medicines Paints Fluorescent tubes Spray cans Pesticide containers Batteries Shoe polish

People at large do not segregate waste. Different colour bins are promoted in Aquem Bus stand by the municipality to segregate waste. But segregation at one point is not enough. It should be followed at all stages. If collected waste is well segregated, then it will be treated well in the end.

Frequency & efficiency in waste collection

Waste collection in the Margao area occurs as often as once per day. But areas with a high density of small retail shops, SGPD Market & many areas where storage space is limited, Community bins regularly overflows due to heavy dumping of the waste. The frequency of collection and transportation of wastes is not satisfactory in those areas. There is lack of adequate number of containers on each street corner, at several places of densely populated street. The residents at times do not have access to proper services and hence dispose their waste in the public spaces like roads, drains. Hawkers contribute to littering of roads. Community bins are not properly placed or not at a point on the edge of a region which is easy to use & accessible to both generators and collection vehicles. Waste is dumped around the containers; the messier the site becomes, the fewer people attempt to approach the containers. At times the collection crews are not responsible for picking up waste that is not in the containers so the container site may remain messy and obstructed even after a new container is placed there.

About Pilot Project

The Margao Municipal Council will be coming up with a new project called the Pilot Project wherein they will have different bins to collect waste that is two bins for dry waste and wet waste. The total investment for this is said to be around 5-6 crore. This project will come into play most probably by 2015. This project will be started in the first week of February in Aquem. In this project they are going to collect waste from door to door, wherein the wet waste will be collected on a daily basis and the dry waste to be collected twice a week. In this project the municipality will collect a fee of 1000/- to 1500/- in a year. The problem with this project is that the Municipality does not have proper data on the people leaving in the locality, as there are lots of illegal houses in the locality. In order to encourage the citizens, municipal will organize awareness programmes for segregation of wastes and shall promote recycling or reuse of segregated materials. The municipal authority shall undertake phased programme to ensure community participation in waste segregation. For this purpose, sessions and seminars will be conducted in school, colleges to create awareness by NGOs as well as some private agencies.

Fish Market The waste generated in this section is all the remains of the fish The garbage which is generated there is collected twice a day by two persons kept in charge of collecting the garbage and dumping it in a place. The person in charge in collecting the garbage collects the garbage at late night and in the afternoon. The sellers selling their fish pay the person Rs.40/- per stall for cleaning their stall in a month. The MMC comes to collect the garbage at around 2.15 pm. He also told us that these remains of the fish like the bones, fins could be used as manure for coconut trees.

General Store The waste generated in this section is plastic, papers, boxes etc. The waste like plastic was thrown at a place and these are collected by the MMC. The Margao Municipal also collects waste from the general stores so that they do not litter the area.

Flower Shop Waste like stems of flowers, leaves were collected at a place which was then taken away by the MMC workers. The dirty water was just thrown in the open or any pit.

Chicken, beef and mutton section In this section the waste was the unwanted meat, bones and skin of the animal. Here the waste is collected in huge plastic container and kept till the MMC comes to collect it. Some kind of waste is also sold to the customers who come so that they can feed their pets or for some other use. The waste here is collected twice a day. The garbage of different chambers or sections is collected separately by the MMC and the collected garbage is then taken away. The MMC collected the waste twice a day.

Its very nice to see that the government does make efforts to keep the area clean, hygienic etc. for example the government has now employed two supervisors who constantly see to the cleanliness maintained. One of the supervisors was overall in charge of the market complex. There are eight workers appointed in each section. These workers work for 3 hours in the morning and 3 hours in the evening; that means the market is cleaned twice a day. These people are responsible to sweep off the garbage, separate the dry waste from wet waste and finally collect and keep the garbage in its own dumping zone.