The Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) implemented the Solid Waste Management Rules in 2016. The following year, it passed directions for bulk waste generators (including apartment complexes and gated communities) in Chennai to process their waste inside their premises. “Seven years down the line, very few bulk waste generators in Chennai are following the norms,” points out P Natarajan, Founder of Namma Ooru Foundation in our earlier article.
KGEYES Homes in Chennai’s Besant Nagar is a 25-year-old residential complex with 36 dwelling units. Similar to many other apartment complexes in the neighbourhood, residents here did not adhere to the waste management rules until 2019, largely due to their lack of awareness about waste processing methods on their premises. However, since 2019, they have not only processed their waste effectively but also significantly reduced their contribution to landfills.
Here is what they did to bring about this change.
Action is the solution
“We used to have two garbage bins to dump the waste from all the households, which was later collected by the GCC workers. All the households mixed the waste before dumping them into the garbage bins. We were not aware of how to segregate and process it at the individual level and at a large scale for the whole apartment,” says Vasundra Gopalarathnam, Secretary of KGEYES Homes Flat Owners Welfare Association.
In July 2019, they came into contact with Natarajan (from Namma Ooru), who demonstrated to the apartment residents how to segregate waste at source and compost biodegradable waste, particularly for bulk waste generators.
Under Natarajan’s guidance, the residents of KGEYES Homes started following the two-bin and one-bag system. The residents’ association distributed two bins (a green and a red bin) and a bag to all 36 houses.
Streamlining waste collection
They also employed a couple of workers to collect the waste from every household.
One of the workers takes the biodegradable waste and checks if any other material that cannot be composted is mixed with the waste collected from the green bins. After removing such material, the worker then takes the waste for composting. The waste from the garden is also collected and used for composting.
The red bin waste is handed over to the GCC conservancy workers daily. Once a week, the plastic collected separately in a bag is sold to the local scrap dealer, who then takes them for recycling. Once a month or two, they also collect the e-waste separately and hand it over to the conservancy workers.
Read more: Waste segregation requires participation from all stakeholders: Chennai Corporation Commissioner
Consistent effort is the key
Though the residents are cooperative, it was not an easy journey. In the initial days, the residents’ welfare association had to put in a lot of effort to identify gaps. “Educating the residents took time. We used to conduct meetings to create awareness and demonstrate,” says Natarajan AK, President of the KGEYES Homes Flat Owners Welfare Association.
Vasundra adds that they also did door-to-door demos in each household to educate residents, and sent regular messages on WhatsApp groups on all the new learnings they come across.
“Initially we educated the residents who are the homeowners/tenants. But we realised in most of these houses the domestic helpers were the ones handling the waste at source. So, we conducted a meeting with the domestic helpers and demonstrated them on how to segregate the waste,” Vasundra adds.
As someone who regularly monitors the waste management process in the apartment, Vasundra says, “When the worker checks for any non-biodegradable waste mixed with biodegradable waste, I observe the types of waste being mixed and alert residents not to include such items. We must stay vigilant to simplify this process for everyone involved.”
Continuous learning process
Speaking about the interesting lessons they’ve learned so far, Vasundra says, “Like many others, we thought that orange peels and lemon peels go into the green bins. However, we learned from experts like Natarajan (from Namma Ooru) that citrus fruits take much longer to compost. Similarly, many residents also mix coconut shells with green waste, which should instead be kept in separate bags. As we learn such lessons, we pass them on to all the residents.”
It took around 6–7 months to streamline the process and ensure compliance from all the residents. For the initial few months, they were supervised by the volunteers from Namma Ooru Foundation. Now, they are self-sustaining.
Read more: Residential bulk waste generators flout SWM rules in Chennai
What have these residents been able to achieve since 2019?
This apartment complex generates from 15 to 20 kg waste every day. “Since one of our residents is running a catering service, they cut the vegetables at home. So the amount of waste from their household will be a bit more than others adding to the increased quantity of biodegradable waste,” notes Vasundra.
Once every 45 days, they make more than 300 kgs of manure. “Before we started composting our own manure, we used to buy it from outside. Now, we not only use our own manure but also give it to those that are in need. In the first few years, we also used only bioclean (bioclean is a highly efficient solid-state aerobic fermentation media, which can convert biodegradable waste into high-value compost without any foul odour) for composting the biodegradable waste. Now we mix both bioclean and our own compost in the prescribed ratio, thereby cutting down the cost of buying the fermentation media,” she adds.
For an apartment with 36 households, it takes Rs 5,000 a month to keep this process running. This includes the labour charges and the money spent on buying bioclean.
Often, residents in apartment complexes refuse to compost waste on-site due to concerns about odour. When asked how they manage this issue, Vasundra says they’ve never experienced it. “If we mix the waste with the bioclean in the ratio prescribed by professionals, I don’t think there will be any odour,” she adds.
Inspiring other apartments to follow suit
Sharing insights on how to get started, she adds that the residents, be it the house owners or the tenants, will adapt to segregation, if they are made to understand the consequences and impact of their actions.
“Unlike individual households, it is easy to get the process of waste management streamlined in big apartments as the residents’ welfare associations will have the money. They only need the heart to take the right steps now,” adds Natarajan (President of the KGEYES Homes Flat Owners Welfare Association).
On a positive note, the neighbouring apartment complex has also begun the same process after seeing how the residents of KGEYES Homes were processing their waste.
“We can save many tonnes of waste from reaching landfills if we put in six months of effort to regulate the process,” says Vasundra appealing to other bulk waste generators in the city to make similar efforts.
The apartment complexes that are looking for contacts of service providers for wet and dry waste can access it from the GCC web portal (at the end of the web page).