the goan I network
MARGAO
Will the study tour by the 13 Margao City Fathers led by Chairperson Babita Prabhudesai to picturesque Diu to attend the two-day training on advanced technology on waste segregation ring in good news for the commercial capital grappling with the burning issue of waste segregation?
This question did the rounds in the corridors of the Margao civic body on Thursday as around 70 tons of unsegregated waste finds its way to Sonsodo everyday, literally choking the waste treatment plant and aggravating matters at the waste dumping site.
The Goan understands from Margao Municipal Council officials that barring the small quantity of waste received from the Madel wards, which was started on Independence Day last, the balance waste comes to the Sonsodo plant in an unsegregated manner.
Officials pointed out that while the civic body had started door-to-door waste collection since last four years, segregation of waste at source has eluded the Margao civic body till date, compounding the existing problems at Sonsodo.
The Margao Municipality has been under pressure to send segregated waste at the Sonsodo plant for a long time now. The civic body has received a host of letters from the plant operator to send only waste in segregated form, but the ground reality has not changed for the better at the plant till date.
Says Sanitary Inspector Viraj Arabekar, who has been posted at the Sonsodo site: “The MMC trucks only bring a small quantity of segregated waste from Madel at Sonsodo. The remaining waste comes in unsegregated form.”
With tons of unsegregated waste finding its way at the Sonsodo plant everyday, the unsegregated waste later finds its way to the open dumping site for want of any mechanism set up by the civic body to handle the unsorted waste.
Against this backdrop, the study tour undertaken by the Margao City Fathers assumes significance as the solid waste management rules, 2016 mandates the local civic bodies to send only unsegregated waste to the waste treatment plants.
Incidentally, the MMC has not made much headway in its ambitious plan to outsource door-to-door collection of waste in a segregated form. And, neither has the Margao Municipality come out with any proposal how to tackle the waste problem after the plan to adopt the controversial Black Hole Technology was shot down even before its take off.
