By Express News Service THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Decentralised waste management is key in the current waste management scenario according to experts attending the National Zero Waste Seminar held here on Friday. They concurred that with centralised waste management facing widespread resistance and being mostly deemed unscientific, many local bodies across the country were focussing on decentralised waste management. Alternate uses for collected plastic like in tarring roads with shredded plastic also has more takers. Udupi Model In Karnataka’s Udupi municipality, the plastic waste is used by the cement factories. Archana Tripathi, in her presentation about the waste management projects in the municipality said the non-recyclable waste is baled and sent to cement plants. Moreover, the Udupi model gives focus on waste management at source especially because of the huge number of institutions active in its limits. “Udupi is a comparatively small municipality but they have now come a long way in waste management in the past few years. There are three dry waste collection centres with a conveyor installed in one of them for convenience while segregating the waste and two of these centres have bailing machines. There are also weekly dry waste collection as well as biodegradable waste collection which happens 4-5 days every week. Also, with sufficient awareness campaigns, the municipality has also achieved a higher level of segregated waste collection,” she said. Going forward, an incinerator of sanitary waste management, bioremediation of the existing landfill, setting up a rendering unit for slaughterhouse waste and material recovery facilities (MRF) are also in the plans. Balaghat Balaghat municipality with its 32 wards and a population of close to 1 lakh was the first local body in Madhya Pradesh to adopt decentralised waste management. Anish Kumar Charles from Balaghat Municipality said the efforts started when the centralised waste management became difficult. “There was a landfill in a grama panchayat. We needed to think differently and after reviewing many models, we decided on decentralised waste management. We started with two bailing machines and plastic crushers. Then we started segregation, household waste collection and also the MRFs. With technical support from Centre for Science and Environment we began our efforts and now, the waste situation is more or less under control. We were also nominated as a change-maker city in the UN habitat project,” said Anish.

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