Guidelines for disposal of household garbage

• 1. Housekeeping staff attends to all flats door to door for garbage collection between 9 am to 11 am in the morning

  2. All residents are expected to keep their garbage outside their main door, or corner of the lobby, ONLY during those two hours

  3. Please take your dustbins inside the house after the garbage is collected - keep the lobby areas clean and tidy at all times

  4. Residents are requested NOT to keep garbage in any common areas or outside their doors during the day or over the night

  5. Residents are requested to NOT leave garbage open, and neatly place it outside in the lobby area on their respective floor, in covered dustbins or biodegradable garbage bags. Please do not use fire staircase or passenger staircase to dispose any garbage or other discards.

  6. Residents must ensure that garbage is segregated as organic (mostly wet) and non-organic (mostly dry) waste

     1. Organic waste is fed to the OWC plant installed onsite in SOJ to generate compost

     2. OWC plant CANNOT take in non-organic waste, hence this segregation at source is very crucial

     3. ENSURE that the organic / wet garbage DOES NOT contain any plastic materials - usage of plastic causes the manure to rot and the entire batch has to be discarded

  7. As educated and responsible citizens, we cannot expect our garbage collectors to manually scan through our garbage and segregate the waste. Please show respect to the labor and segregate the garbage before handing it over to them.

  8. In keeping with the time and nature of job, it is VERY important that garbage is segregated at the source (at your house, in your kitchen) instead of asking our collectors to do it manually. 

  9. Such mixed garbage, which eventually cannot be segregated, is NOT picked up by PMC and in turn starts piling up onsite, incurring disposal costs

  10. Please simply rinse the packed food plastic containers before throwing them into the dustbin

Residents must note that this is mandated upon us by PMC to segregate garbage at source and to dispose organic waste ourselves, hence each one of us MUST take up this responsibility and act in compliance - it is a habit, easy to cultivate, PLEASE START NOW

How to segregate wet and dry waste

1. Segregate waste at source of waste generation, into;

   1. Organic / Wet Waste: This is mostly generated in the kitchen - vegetable and fruit peel, cooked food etc.

   2. Non-Organic / Dry Waste - for recycling includes paper, tins/cans, juice boxes, plastic wrappers and boxes, cardboard, wood etc.

   3. Other waste: diapers, sanitary napkins, condoms, glass, rubber,  cloth.

2. Discard of wet waste: Use a covered bin (like a foot operated or a bin with a lid), put a biodegradable bag or a newspaper to cover the inside of the dustbin. This helps the housekeeping staff to transfer wet waste easily from your bin to theirs. -- 

   1. Note: this waste generates foul smell so ALWAYS to be covered.

3. Discard of Dry waste: use a separate dustbin to discard this. Preferably a covered bin. Plastic milk bags, juice bottles, sauces bottles etc. should be quickly rinsed with water before discard.

4. Discard of other waste: 

   1. Broken Glass: keep it in a separate plastic bin or a cardboard, cover it and wherever possible verbally inform the housekeeping staff of the broken glass so that they can take safety precautions for themselves.

   2. Diapers: used diapers should be rolled in a way to keep the litter in it covered with diaper itself. Use a separate covered bin to discard these. 

   3. Used sanitary napkins: cover in a newspaper properly and discard in a separate bin.

   4. Used Condoms: tie the condom on top where possible. Cover in a newspaper and discard as rubber waste.

   5. Rubber, cloth or wood: to be discarded in a separate bin. Large pieces or wood/cloth can be kept along with the waste neatly.

   6. Any waste arising from civil or carpentry work must be disposed by the contractor / owner himself, housekeeping will not be able to assist in this aspect

   7. Any waste from paints MUST BE disposed in rain water nallah only, please do not discard paints in any drain line of your flat

   8. Note: liquid waste like oil, curries, soups etc. can be discarded in the kitchen sink or balcony drain accompanied with lots of water. If liquid waste has pieces of solid waste, ensure sieving before discard to avoid blocking of drains.

FROM PMC COMMISSIONER's DESK

• 1. Segregation of household solid garbage has been mandated by PMC under the Swachch Bharat movement and now even more under the Smart City campaign https://pmc.gov.in/en/swm

  2. The PMC divisional commissioner mandate and plan for solid waste management can be read here - https://pmc.gov.in/sites/default/files/SWM_Plan_2025_2017-PMC.pdf

  3. OWC has been put into operation on 4th July 2018 (organic waste converter) - (click here to view images online)

     1. OWC requires wet compostable waste ONLY to be used for conversion - as such segregation of garbage at source is mandatory. Even a small spoon of plastic can cause troubles in operation of OWC, and its operators have to be extremely careful with this

     2. Today, it takes 3 to 4 hours only to segregate the garbage collected from 120 flats (A1/A2) and put it in the OWC for conversion. This "time taken" needs to come down substantially in order to use the personnel time more effectively and reduce OWC operational risks

  4. The occupation certificate (bhogavata patra) for "Song of Joy" project has been sanctioned on the pretext that we practice clean and sustainable living practices - like using solar water heater, STP recycled water and dry waste compost management

• See also: Failure to compost wet waste to invites prosecution

• http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report-failure-to-compost-wet-waste-to-invite-prosecution-2588240