Union Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu on Monday urged residents of the national Capital to segregate waste at their houses and shops to avoid causing damage to the environment.
“Bins with different colours should be used to segregate the waste in every house and shop. Green bins should be used for the wet waste and blue for the dry waste,” Naidu said. He spoke while addressing a gathering after launching a campaign on segregation of waste at the source in the National Capital Region (NCR) on the occasion of World Environment Day. The four-month-long nationwide Waste Segregation at Source campaign will cover about 4,000 cities and towns. The campaign will be continued till October 2. The segregation is the first step to scientific waste management. Once segregated each category of waste can then be treated separately rather than make its way to the landfill.
In NCR region, about 15,000 tonnes of municipal solid waste is being generated every day while about 65 million tones of such waste is produced every day in urban areas of the country. Under Swachchh Bharat Mission (Urban), 100 per cent door-to-door collection, transportation and processing of solid waste is targeted by October, 2019. On the occasion, an agreement, under which the Delhi Metro will purchase “green” power from the Infrastructure leasing and Financial Services (Il&FS), was signed between the two parties.
With the launch of the campaign, at least 4,000 urban areas along with the national Capital is set to try out waste segregation at source campaign to tackle the country’s waste problems. Waste segregation at source means that waste generators, households or commercial establishments, will not just dump their garbage — they will first segregate it into wet or kitchen waste which will be collected in Green Bins and dry waste which is non-biodegradable in blue bins.