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Most of Kolkata (Calcutta, India) roads are strewn with mounds of garbage that grew from a small, carelessly discarded, bag of trash. These mounds and vats, transferred to battered KMC trucks, cheerfully spilling trash on the way to Dhapa – are due to disappear.
The Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) recently opened first of the four garbage collection stations at the Kalighat Park, part of a plan to turn Kolkata into a trash-free metropolis. The KMC solid waste management department has spent Rs 4.5 crore from the Kolkata Environment Improvement Project (KEIP) funds for buying 16 portable compactors, and with the help of technology from Netherlands, the civic body will place these waste compactor machines at the four selected stations. The garbage collection stations will replace vats along some major thoroughfares which include Shyamaprasad Mukherjee Road, Southern Avenue and Ballygunj Circular Road. The Kalighat Park vat has already been replaced with the inauguration of the first such station in the city.
After setting up four such garbage stations, the civic body also plans to set out these portable compactors for collection of garbage from vats in areas such as Majherhat, Beliaghata, Bhowanipore and S.N Banerjee Road. KEIP authorities will then release funds for setting up more such stations and getting movable compactors.
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Kolkata's first garbage compactors may help clean up the city.
KMC Trashes Smarter
By Divya Dhamija
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| Less trash: Not really, but now it'll go to Dhapa in smaller bundles! A new Compactor station being constructed in Kolkata. |
How it works:
Instead of depositing garbage in the vats, the KMC conservancy laborers will unload the entire garbage of a locality into these compactors. The compactors placed inside the garbage station, squeeze the garbage and store it inside a container. The water drained, the compacted garbage will be transported to the Dhapa dumping ground.
Disposal would become a less messy affair, and the reduced weight (minus the water) and smaller dimensions (compacted) would result in significant fuel savings.
Bengal Minister Subrata Mukherjee said that this initiative would bring down the cost of transportation and disposal of garbage significantly. According to a senior official in the KMC solid waste management department, if Kolkata has to be made a garbage-free city, the KMC needs to replace as many as 50 major vats across the city.
KMC conservancy workers outside a new compactor station at Kalighat.
Some Calcuttans are skeptical on the development. “Calcutta is one of the nastiest cities in India. I think before we mechanised waste management, we will have to educate the citizens - because they lack the civic sense. Often, you can see in Calcutta people littering in broad daylight before public. That needs to stop”, says Hemant, an engineering student.
Mayor Sovan Chatterjee highlights another hurdle, “Our aim is to make Calcutta a vat-free, clean city. But for that we need an alternative landfill site. Though we have a land at Dhapa but it is inadequate to handle the 4,000-4,500 tons of rubbish that the city generates every day. The biggest problem is identifying another landfill site”.
But on the whole, the compactors seem a viable solution. “Finally a sensible approach taken by KMC because the open vats are not only eyesore but a massive source of infection to surroundings and humans”, said Mr. K.Nath, a resident of Kalighat area, the first locality to get the new compactor stations.
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