Waste management in your apartment: A mini guide
What is waste?
Waste is all those things we discard after using it to the optimum level. Waste comes alongside every product that we produce. Household waste can include a whole range of substances like vegetables, plastic, meats, bones, fruits, used battery cells, paper, etc.
There are various kinds of wastes generated in apartments, which are to be segregated and separated at every household. If not, then it becomes difficult for the municipal organisations to dispose of and recycle the waste.
Waste management has become one of the most vital issues in every city as the authorities are finding it difficult to dispose of huge amount of waste generated everyday. Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has made waste segregation at source mandatory for every households from October 1. If you stay in Bangalore and do not take care not to mix dry waste and wet waste, then the civic authority would impose fine. You need to keep them separately so that municipality workers can collect them easily. Before going into how to manage waste in an apartment let us take a look at different kinds of waste and how they are to be collected from households.
Different types of wastes generated in your household:
|
Wet Waste |
Cooked and uncooked food, plant leaves, compostable materials, coffee powder, tea powder, etc |
|
Sanitary Waste |
Menstrual cloth (used), disposable diapers, sanitary napkins, bandages, etc. |
|
Dry Waste (paper) |
All types of paper, paper plates, tickets, telephone bills, wrappers, leaflets, flyers, etc |
|
Dry Waste (plastic) |
All types of plastic, plastic bags, coke bottles, water bottles, garbage packs, milk packets, pouches, etc. |
|
Dry Waste (hazardous) |
E-wastes, used syringes, insecticides and containers, discarded medicines, battery cells, CDs, tube lights, CFL bulbs, household chemicals, etc. |
|
Dry Waste (others) |
Metal items, tetra packs, aluminum foils, aluminum cans, thermo cols, bottles, plates, utensils, etc |
|
Garden Waste |
Plant leaves, dry and wet cut branches |
|
Inert Waste |
All types of construction materials, cement, mud, etc. |
Best waste management practices in an apartment:
Waste management is the collection, transport, processing, recycling or disposal and monitoring of waste materials. The waste management process comprises of 3 Rs : “reduce, reuse and recycle”. Waste management in the apartment is an integral part of maintaining your apartment as it is the means through which you can contribute to the cause of getting your city rid of garbage 
menace.
Reduce: The first aim is to generate least possible waste. You can reduce the waste by consuming less, thus producing less waste. To buy three items, you can carry just one cloth/jute bag to the market instead of one plastic bag for each of them. As plastic bags would end up being waste, we can reduce the waste by replacing the plastic bag with a cloth bag.
Reuse: Reusing would be to use the same material over and over again to its optimum level. The best example would be the use of paper, which we can minimize to save trees being cut down.
Recycle: The third step is to recycle. To be able to recycle waste it is necessary to segregate it at source.
Waste segregation at source:
Waste segregation is the most important part in waste management. It means segregating waste into dry and wet waste so that they are not mixed. Waste segregation is necessary as only then it is possible to recycle the dry waste and compost the wet waste. The five bin concept is the best process for the waste segregation in an apartment society.
How to segregate and dispose different types of waste ?
The table below tells how to segregate and dispose the waste generated in an apartment and apartment societies.
| Types of wastes | How to dispose | Collection process | Where to keep |
| Wet Waste | To be unloaded directly into collection bins | Will not collect if mixed with other types of waste. | To be Collected from Home |
| Sanitary Waste | To be handed over daily along with wet waste suitably wrapped in paper | Will not collect if not covered in newspaper/paper bags | To be Collected from Home |
| Dry Waste – Paper | Food packets, paper plates to be rinsed before disposal | To be delivered to the local municipal authority’s dry waste collection centers | To be disposed at containers placed in Lobby area |
| Dry Waste – Plastic | Food packets, paper plates to be rinsed before disposal | To be delivered to the local municipal authority’s dry waste collection centers | To be disposed at containers placed in Lobby area |
|
Dry Waste – Household hazardous |
Dispose in sealed or closed manner to avoid harm to handling people. | To be delivered to the local municipal authority’s waste collection centers | To be disposed at containers placed in Lobby area |
| Dry Waste – others | To be disposed in compressed form. Large quantity to be bundled in disposable black bags | To be delivered to the local municipal authority’s waste collection centers | To be disposed at containers placed in Lobby area |
| Garden Waste | To be accumulated to dispose on designated day | To be delivered to the local municipal authority’s waste collection centers | To be collected by House keeping |
| Inert Waste | To be preserved till the collection day | To be delivered to the local municipal authority’s waste collection centers on payments | Resident/ Association |
Composting the organic waste:
Kitchen and gardening waste can easily be composted. It is the organic matter that has been decomposed and recycled as a fertilizer
and soil amendment. Compost can be rich in nutrients and can be used in gardens, landscaping, horticulture and agriculture. Compost is generally recommended as an additive to soil, or other matrices such as coir and peat, as a tilt improver, supplying humus and nutrients.
The Organic Waste Converter (OWC) unit in an apartment society can be installed in the basement or on the ground floor. It needs a room of 10′-12′ and some open space outside for the waste collection and segregation if required. The wet waste from the black color bin and the garden waste collected by the housekeeping members of the communities should be and taken to the Organic Waste Converter (OWC) unit.
How does the process works:
Compost stock along with garden waste as well as kitchen waste are being fed into the compost mixing machine. After the components are well mixed, the mixture is kept in crates for fermentation. Little amount of water is added to the mixture after every 3 hours. The process of fermentation takes place naturally in almost 15 days. After 15 days, the compost is ready to be used in gardens of the apartment societies.
Few common doubts:
1. What to do with wet waste?
Every day you should collect it in a waste bin directly, without putting it into a plastic cover. This will be carried out daily by the house keeping guys.
2. How to keep your trash bin from being dirty?
You should put a paper bag/newspaper in your wet waste bin to save your bin from getting dirty. Moreover, you should wash your west waste bin daily.
3. What to do with infectious waste?
Sanitary napkins, Baby diapers, Bandages, cotton etc is considered as infectious waste. You should wrap it in a newspaper or put it in a paper bag and hand it over to housekeeping guys every day. You should not mix it with Wet waste as both are carried out daily.
4. How to deal with hazardous waste?
Bulbs, batteries, paints, discarded medicines, injections, electronic waste, etc are all hazardous waste. You should retain this waste inside your houses in bags, cartons etc until it is collected.
