Rain, festival make disposal of wet waste tougher for apartments

With incessant rains in the last few days and a long festive weekend, people living in apartment buildings are facing a challenge in processing and disposing wet waste. And organic waste convertor units set up at these blocks aren’t helping much, residents say.

Aditi Banerjee, a resident of Domlur, said her apartment building generated 100-120 kg of wet waste every day, which was processed with the waste composter set up on the apartment premises. But the compostor’s processing capacity has slowed down in the last few days, she said.

“More wet waste has been generated in the last three days. To add to our problems, the composting process has become slow because of heavy rains. Composting happens better with dry season and air. Besides, the compost needs to be dried before it is used. We had to empty half-done compost because it was not fully processed,” added Banerjee.

Similarly, Latha K S from Hennur said her apartment building had been handing over wet waste to private dealers as excess festival garbage had been accumulated in the last three to four days.

Smaller apartment blocks which are dependent on the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) and private waste dealers, too, have their share of problems. G Maliappan, president of one such block, S2 Primrose Apartment Owners’ Association, said the wet waste had not been collected from his apartment building in the last two days.

“Municipal workers do not properly lift the wet waste from segregated dustbins. As a result, the remains end up scattered inside the apartment premises. When it rains, they start giving bad smell.”

Bindhu Vinod, a volunteer of ‘Naanu Nagarika’ nonprofit, said waste compostors or convertors should be ideally built so they could work efficiently even during heavy rainfall.

Nalini Shekar, co-founder of ‘Hasirudala’, a member-based organisation of waste pickers, and an active participant in waste management programmes, said: “If the moisture level is maintained and there are enough microbes inside the composter, then there would not be any problems.”