SHILLONG, April 12: A visit to Marten the garbage dumping ground that accommodates tonnes of waste per day from Shillong and its suburbs gives a grim picture of a system that warrants better management. First the whole place is hazy because of the incessant smoke from the garbage processing system. In the midst of this unremitting dust and fume are 14 women from the Iainehskhem Self-Help Group (SHG) who apart from segregating recyclable waste from which they earn a modest income, also process the wet waste comprising mostly kitchen waste and leftovers from hotels and restaurants.
President of the SHG, Bibisha Kharnaior and her team are masked, wear tough gloves and gumboots because they have to literally segregate plastics and other non-biodegradable waste from the wet waste.
“It is a huge problem for us when people don’t respect the directive of keeping dry waste in blue buckets and wet biodegradable kitchen waste in the green one. The two buckets have been distributed to each household about four years ago but people still don’t segregate their waste. So, we have to spend time going through the mucky wet garbage to pull out plastic or bits of metal pieces before we process the wet garbage to compost,” Kharnaior told this correspondent.
The whole process of pulling out plastic bags and other non-biodegradable stuff from the wet waste takes time. Also people throw whole papayas, pineapples, cauliflowers etc., and these have to be cut into smaller pieces. Once the garbage is cleaned of all plastics it is spread out and then mixed with what is called “lab” comprising water in which rice is washed; then follows a mixture of crushed husk and also fried husk and powdered charcoal. Mixing the entire mixture manually takes a lot of physical strength as does carting the mixture in wheelbarrows to a designated space where it is kept covered with gunny bags for about two weeks before it turns to organic manure.
Bibisha rued that the organic manure they produce has no market. “We were earlier supplying this manure to Raj Bhavan and it has been certified by ICAR to be high quality compost. Later Raj Bhavan decided to stop buying our compost for reasons unknown and we are now selling only small quantities to people who come here to buy them at Rs 30 a kg,” she says.
Many however would not want to go to Marten and its ugly, toxic surroundings merely to buy manure. In fact avid gardeners spoken to said, “If there is an outlet that stocks local organic compost we would gladly buy it but going all the way to Marten is a No No.”
When Bibisha was asked why the Agriculture or Forest departments were not buying the local compost she said she was unaware of the reasons.
Bibisha also informed that she has just returned from Odisha where she was imparted training on better waste management. She expressed her concern about the chore or mixing the wet waste and said it could have been more efficient if there was a mixing machine. “But who will provide us that facility? Our earnings are meagre so we cannot invest in a machine whose cost might be quite high, she,” stated.
At present the SHG is hiring a pick-up van to collect wet garbage from the surrounding areas – mainly Mawiong and Mawlai so that they can scale up the compost production and hopefully will be able to find a better marketing strategy. Kharnaior said that if the government or one of its agencies could get them a pick-up van they would be able to save on hiring one. She said that the SHG has been doing a door to door awareness campaign in an around Mawiong and the wet waste collected from these households is very well segregated and ready for processing, whereas waste coming from Laitumkhrah and other areas within Shillong city is problematic as people don’t take responsibility to segregate wet and dry waste.
Meanwhile Bibisha and her team keep hoping that things will get better and that the Urban Affairs Department or any other wing of the government would assist the SHG to lessen their burden and enable them to be more efficient and productive by assisting them with machinery and a pick-up van. That is a faint hope they have.
Bibisha further informed that several people have visited them at Marten, seen their work, asked them what their problems were but after all the explaining they leave the place and there is no help forthcoming.
“Now I am tired of explaining our problems to different groups of people who come here to see our work,” she said with a sense of futility showing in her grim demeanour.
People don’t think much about what happens to the waste they discard. They throw and forget about it. But this waste goes through several cycles and some people are involved in this cycle. The least that people can do is be responsible for the waste they generate and segregate the wet and dry waste. That is Bibisha’s message to all.
