India’s one of the cleanest cities and Karnataka’s heritage city, Mysuru is setting a trend of transforming its tones of trash into millions of rupees. Now, it became India’s cleanest city, beating Chandigarh, in the Swachh Sarvekshan 2016 sanitation survey by the government. The 0.89 million citizens of the city have employed over 1.37 sweepers per km. They are responsible to manage 410 tons (27 trucks), which is more solid waste than that of Chandigarh.
According to a research published by Jamia Millia Islamia University, New Delhi, in 2016, increasing urbanization, rising consumption and wealth might cause 5-fold hike in the amount of urban solid waste by 2051.
For India, it is a giant crisis to face in the near future. But civic authorities in Mysuru have got truly a viable solution with a bit of technology and presence of mind. Even better, it makes millions of rupees. Mysuru hasn’t became India’s cleanest city overnight. It already had 3 R’s – Reduce, Refuse, and Recycle. Now they have Reuse, another R. It conducts door-to-door collection of garbage and the way it manages the waste is totally incredible.
How They Make Money with Waste?
Mysuru residents have two types of dustbins in their homes, i.e. one for compost, while another for non-compost. Sanitary works whistle every morning for garbage collection. They load 170 auto-trippers and 400 push carts for recycling centers, a compost plant, 47 centers for dry waste collection, and 9 recycling centers. The trash is separated at the centers with reusable items like metal, footwear, bottles, and plastic cups that scrap dealers purchase. They make compost of the rest and send to farmers. They have a workable model to turn wet waste into compost in waste processing centers.
200 Tons of Compost Processed every day
Rs. 6 Lakh goes to Mysuru City Corporation (MCC) as royalty from an organization which manages city’s biggest compost plant, ILFS and processing centers sell dry waste and make Rs. 24,000 per month, according to CG Betsurmath, former MCC Commissioner.
Mysuru segregated 80% of its trash before processing and achieved 100% door-to-door collections. Mysuru has become an ideal city of India. It has huge network of drains of 1586 km and its public toilets are 98% poster-free and fully functional. It also avoids open defecation thanks to Swachh Bharat. In addition, people are also aware and do their best to keep their city clean.
Under a slum rehabilitation programme, total 6000 toilets were built in the city. It is the best way to deal with the issue of open defecation. Here, radio shows are not all about comedy and songs. They also run campaigns, such as morning radio jingles. In addition, pamphlets, street plays and WhatsApp messages helped a lot.
Mysuru produces up to 402 tons of waste every day. Around half of this waste is processed at compost plant and quarter of it is treated by garbage centers, according to Bloomberg.
Mysuru’s history of cleanliness is not new. Along with lavish palaces, its rulers also had a masterplan by 1903. Underground drainage was built in 1910 and street lighting in 1908.
