Special efforts on to foster Swachh Siddipet

Siddipet: The town is now all set to convert wet garbage into organic manure in every ward. Six wards have been selected for this experiment. Minister Harish Rao is taking keen interest in making Swacch Siddipet.

Siddipet is now expanding rapidly and new colonies are emerging. Although performing better, a competent management of resources is yet to take shape. Trash is collected from 95 per cent of households, but wet and dry waste are separately collected from 45 per cent of households only at present. The urban area is spread 50.03 sqkm. The town has 39,616 families and about 1.46 lakh people live here. It produces an average of 180 quintals of wet, 12 quintals of dry, 30 quintals of domestic hazardous garbage.

The open areas in the town have become dumping yards. Dr Shanti, a Bengaluru-based environmentalist and an agency spokesperson, provided inputs on how to carry out the experiment which conducted there. It is decided to implement similar experiment in Siddipet. In the first phase, the wards 1, 4, 10, 12, 22, and 33 of the town were selected as part of the programme. The ward councilors attended the workshop held in Bangalore. They spent 10 days programme organised under the auspices of Dr Shanti to educate residents in their wards.

Now, wet garbage is collected for five days a week, dry waste for two days and hazardous domestic garbage for six days in different vehicles. The collected dry garbage will be shifted to the town's interim transport center and compressed by a special machine. Milk packets, cartons and journals will be compressed separately and sent for recycling. For disposing of domestic hazardous garbage, vehicles that carry biomedical waste will be used. Dry waste can be used for recycling and wet waste can become organic fertilisers. These measures not only benefit the environment but also reduce cost of garbage collection.

Dr Shanti will be here for a week to oversee the programme to make people aware of waste segregation.