40 S. GALAB, S. SUDHAKAR REDDY AND JOHAN POST
legal implications are forcing municipalities to make serious business of SWM in their
judicial areas.
3.3. ORGANISATION OF SWC SERVICES
Collection and disposal
Solid waste is generated in households and institutions. Among the households a
further distinction is usually made between the various income groups: high, medium
and low. Institutions can be further subdivided in government institutions (schools,
offices, hospitals etc.) and private institutions (shops, markets, offices, hotels, private
clinics etc.). All these generators store their waste on or near their premises (primary
storage). From these primary storage points some of this waste – unfortunately the
volume is unknown – is separated by servant maids, tricyclists (in the VGDS scheme),
office boys and shop keepers After the above mentioned actors separated the collected
waste, some of the organic waste materials is taken by heardsmen to cattle farms,
while the remaining fraction is transported to composting units by MCH and private
trucks and tricyclists (under the VGDS; see chapter 10). From the composting units,
the compost is sold to urban farmers Itinerant buyers and small traders who subse-
quently sell the waste to retail traders and wholesale traders purchase inorganic waste
from primary collection points. From the wholesale traders some quantity of waste is
offered for local reuse, some quantity is transported to other states, while the
remainder goes to recycling units (see chapter 7). The unsegregated and mixed munic-
ipal solid waste from the primary collection points, which still constitutes the bulk of
the total volume of generated waste within the city, is being dumped at dustbins or
secondary storage points.
From the secondary storage points (i.e. roadside dustbins) the waste is carried to
collection points by MCH and private sector workers and it is dumped at secondary
collection points. These community waste bins are usually located at street corners In
the city, the MCH has provided 4,900 concrete cylinder waste bins (0.6 cum), 420
metal waste bins (1 m²), and 105 garbage houses (2.5 m²) covering all the areas^3. At
these intermediary points sorting efforts take place both by the official waste workers
and informal waste pickers in order to pick out materials with a potential monetary
value, in practice only recyclables, as most reusable materials are already taken out
- The total holding capacity of the existing collection centres comes to 3,623 m² of garbage amounting
to 2,170 tons. Thus the garbage holding capacity is higher than the waste generated per day. However,
the location and spread of these waste bins across the population and the frequency of collection are
more important factors than the garbage holding capacity. The illegal settlements, for example, are
poorly provided. For the sake of comparison: while every waste bin in the MCH serves 737 persons,
the figure in the nine adjoining municipalities is much more favourable with an average 270 persons
per bin.