We often see trash on sidewalks, read news about animals choking on waste and garbage mountains turning into islands. But, what if we could turn all of it around without much effort? There would be no need for beach clean-up drives which tend to happen only on special days. Public spaces could be clean everyday, by responsibly taking care of our waste.
Minimising and managing waste
Some of the easiest ways to be a conscious consumer are to ‘Reduce, Reuse and Refuse’. But sometimes, we have no choice, but to do otherwise. In that case, how do we deal with our waste? We can segregate our waste and recycle it.
The wet waste can be composted at home, giving us fresh compost for our garden. This can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions too, whereas the dry waste can be further segregated and given to a waste management facility. If segregated right, we can be paid for it in turn.
Waste management facilities
There are six such waste management facilities in Panjim and were all started by the CCP (Corporation of the City of Panaji) in March 2021. The facility also called the Sorting Station or Mini MRF (Material recovery facility) was started to manage waste at a decentralized level. Dry waste can be sorted into sixteen categories here.
About 700-1,000 kg of unsorted dry waste, from different wards of the city, comes to their respective MRFs. Then the 'safaisathis' working at the 25m x 7m facility segregates it. This is done into various fractions like PET, Hard Plastics, Glass, Paper and so on. Each category of waste is then sent to the concerned recyclers. This thereby reduces the load on the main MRF.
Ayya Waste Management
Ayya Waste Management was started in June 2021 by MD Gulshad, Aditya Kumar and Dinesh Kumar. It aims to build an environment where people are concerned about their waste. Ayya handles three of those facilities and is helping ULBs (Urban Local Bodies) with building their capacity.
They started the fifteen day behaviour change program and plogging event. Along with the CCP, they started the purchase model where anyone could come and sell their segregated waste. This model was primarily implemented to incentivize people who brought in segregated waste to the facility.
The payout is up to 50 INR per kg depending on the category of waste.
Dropping off waste
Dry waste like white paper, coloured paper, newspaper, PET plastic, hard plastic, LDPE (low density polyethylene) soft plastic, MLP (Multi Layer Plastic) soft plastic and PPP (poly p-phenylene) soft plastic, commonly found, can be dropped there after separation.
They are located in Altinho and Caranzalem. The opening hours are from 9am to 1pm and 2.30pm to 5pm on all days. They are contactable on +91 7004377422.
The best practice would be to clean our not so dry waste and make sure it is completely dried up. However, Ayya waste management makes it simple by accepting glass with wrappers and cardboard with cello tapes.
Founder’s thoughts
MD Gulshad, also program manager of Ayya Waste Management says, "As per the weight, the most we get is glass bottles and least is aluminum. I feel blessed about implementing this circular economy model here. It is focused on upliftment of waste workers as they are the pioneers of this model. The people of Panjim are quite active when it comes to waste and a lot of them are segregating it. We have regular people coming in to drop their waste. However, we would like to reach out to everyone."
Heena Shah is an avid traveller and covers topics such as sustainable travel and lifestyle.