Segregated wastes not only reduce health and safety of waste pickers and the ecosystems around, it largely minimizes waste that fills landfill everywhere in the world.
Today the landfill in Trongsa, which is at Chhunjhupang in Nubi Gewog is almost full.
For this, the district’s municipality office is going to strictly re-initiate segregation of wet and dry wastes at the source. The office will collect only the dry wastes hereafter from the door.
Two or three truckloads of unsegregated wastes are disposed off at the landfill daily. The landfill is nearly an acre land stretch. The plastics, canes, bottles, plastic bottles, clothes and other wastes from locals, Mangdechhu and Nikahchhu hydropower projects claim the landfill.
“We will encourage anybody coming forward to do business and make use of that waste. We say one’s trash is another’s gold. Trash is not a trash if we utilize properly. Hence maybe someone can make a good living out of it if they could come forward. We will provide him or her any kind of support that they want,” said Tenzin Dorji, the Dzongda of Trongsa.
The Dzongkhag also urged locals should worry more about the wet wastes as the monkeys and dogs come for it and the places are made dirty and stinky.
“With the initiative of municipal, the town people will identify a place where pits would be dug. We would ensure that it is located in a proper area, which will be fenced with proper lids and only wet wastes would be thrown there. Hence from now onwards municipal will collect only dry wastes,” the Dzongda added.
The locals are also happy with the re-introduction of the initiative. And says the wastes segregation of dry and wet at the source was once a success story but lost its continuity in the middle due to lack of waste disposing vehicle and driver dispensing the wastes.
“Of course we use to keep the wastes separately in the past also. But we kept mixing in the middle. But now when we keep separately, we are happy,” said Pavitra Sharma, a shopkeeper in Trongsa.
“It is easy for us to segregate the wastes. And of course there is not much problem with the dry wastes as it doesn’t rot and we can wait for vehicles to pick,” added Dawa, also a Shopkeeper in Trongsa.
“We throw the dry wastes whenever the truck comes to pick and dump the wet wastes in a pit nearby our house. We never mix wet and dry wastes,” said Mani Dorji from Sherabling, Trongsa.
The landfill is located some three kilometres away from the town in the forest towards Draagteng gewog. The danger of wastes everywhere in the world is that they all leak after a period of time and results into toxics at the bottom and contaminate the groundwater and release unhygienic explosive gas called methane.
