THE GOAN NETWORK
PANAJI
The ‘Waste Trail’ campaign, which aims to expose residents of Panaji and beyond to the system of waste management adopted by the city, was kickstarted on April 17.
The ‘Waste Trail’ campaign is part of the Dry Waste Management Project in Panaji, guided by the Corporation of City of Panaji and supported by HDFC under its CSR initiative and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
The project is executed on the ground by 21 Century Polymers and Mineral Foundation of Goa including awareness, education, linkage with various waste streams and processing the entire dry waste from the city at the Material Recovery Facility in St. Inez.
This project has introduced an innovative system of 16-way segregation of dry waste in 25 housing societies within the city. The system is one-of-its-kind and is an example to the entire country.
As part of the project, the various awareness campaigns have been initiated for the larger community such as the Red Dot Campaign for sanitary waste, Plastic Lao Mask Pao campaign for exchange of plastic waste, etc.
As part of this initiative, the first Waste Trail was held on April 17, starting from Azad Maidan which saw participation from cyclists from within the city. The event was flagged off by local corporator Sanjeev Naik.
The participants cycled through the city and were taken to the decentralised sorting station at Dona Paula, Housing Complexes in the city, Swachhta Kendra (Material Recovery Facility) at St Inez and the Recycling Centre at Patto.
Manjeet Gawas, Heena Sawant, Shivdas Dessai, Shweta Shinde. Anita Rodrigues and Dinesh Kumar from the Dry Waste Management project team guided the participants.
The Waste Trail is planned to be conducted on the last Saturday of every month wherein members from the public will be invited to participate in the guided waste tour of the city and understand the process of waste collection, scientific disposal and challenges faced.
“Such exposure visits are essential for the common man to know what happens to our waste once it is collected and how it is treated,” said Pranav Govekar while expressing his gratitude to the organisers.
“I personally witnessed workers handling our waste and released the importance of proper segregation at source. I will more mindful henceforth about how I handle my waste. I urge my fellow citizens to participate in the trail and learn.”
