A selfie of Dwarka Forum President with volunteers of IIT at Defence Officers Society
Dwarka Forum, a resident body, has recently launched a door-to-door campaign on waste management with the help of IIT students. The awareness campaign is a joint initiative of the South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC), the Dwarka Forum and the students of IIT Delhi to involve the community in segregation and disposal of solid waste and wet waste in the sub city.
The campaign was started from Defence Officers Society Sector 4. During the campaign, forum president, Madhury Varshneya, IIT students and volunteers of Defence Officers Society visited every resident explaining the concept.
Overwhelmed by the response of the residents, Leena Dabiru, a resident of Defence Officers Society who volunteered to carry out the campaign, said, “We are confident about the success of the drive in our society.”
Offering support to the initiative, President of the society, Debashish Bagchi, said, “We will make all efforts to ensure that the campaign, which started from our society, turns out to be a great success.”
After success in Defence Officers Society and PNB Apartments of Sector 4, the drive has reached Shivalik Apartments Sector 6.
On the response for the initiative, Varshney said, “Wherever we went we were welcomed by the residents with open arms. While some assured us all-out support, others offered to be part of the project.”
IIT Delhi students explaining a residents the concept of waste management
While the awareness campaign will go on in every society of Dwarka, he said, DF will initially adopt five societies for its pilot project aimed at ensuring zero waste localities.
“We request every resident of Dwarka to be a part of the initiative and share this noble responsibility,” he said.
Meanwhile, to push the campaign, SDMC has issued a circular for Dwarka that it will collect only segregated waste from the societies.
Executive Engineer of SDMC, Umed Singh, said, “The entire segregation process will be, henceforth, carried out by RWAs and residents. SDMC will only collect the garbage from the gates of the societies. We will meet the RWAs and management committees of the societies to apprise them about the concept.”
The SDMC circular categorises garbage in three separate streams, namely biodegradable, non-biodegradable and hazardous domestic waste, each to be stored in a separate bin before being handed over to authorised garbage collectors. While kitchen waste will be collected daily, other garbage will be collected after every three days.
Besides direction on segregation, the circular gives instruction to wrap the waste like sanitary pads, diapers securely before dumping in the bin.
It also lays down guidelines for disposal of horticulture waste and building material discards. As per the guidelines, compost of kitchen waste should be made in neighbourhood parks and distributed among residents.
