After winning the ‘Swacch Colony’ award of Dehradun Smart City Project earlier this year, the residents of Kewal Vihar colony located on the Sahastradhara road are now aiming for making it a zero waste and smart colony. Kewal Vihar is the first such colony in Dehradun which is leading by the example of reduce and recycle.
“We encouraged the residents of the society to segregate the waste into dry and wet by going door to door,†said Ashish Garg, a resident of the colony.
According to him, zero waste is produced in his house and only 5 to 7 percent waste is produced from other houses in the colony.
“The wet wastes we generate in the houses are either compost in our gardens itself or at the community’s composting pit. The waste is then converted into useful manure for flowers and plants,†he said.
Another resident of the society informed that they have found out solutions for managing the plastic waste generated in the houses.
“With the help of a NGO of Dehradun, we are collecting all the recyclable and hazardous waste to use it further use in plastic products and for construction of top layers of bitumen roads,†said Sanjay Bhargava another resident of the colony.
He said that segregation is the key to achieve the target of zero waste management. “Around 150 bags for segregation of dry waste have been distributed in the colony and around three tons of dry waste has been collected till now. We have not only distributed the bags to the owners but to tenants as well,†said Bharagava.
“As we all are working on weekdays, we set our targets for Saturdays and Sundays beforehand. By setting targets we have now identified the houses which are not segregating the waste, thus we are clearly focusing on making them join the initiative started by our small team,†said another resident, Rakesh Bhardwaj.
“We walk to every house with the vehicle which comes every 15 days to collect plastic and hazardous waste. By this we encourage people to join the initiative. Not just this but yoga classes are being conducted every week in which many people are participating happily. We have also started a new way to reduce plastic waste by collecting it in plastic bottles in a compact manner. We have made two types of bottles; in one we collect transparent plastic and multi layer plastic in the other,†he added.
Many residents feel that the initiatives such as these are not just helpful for the environment but are helping them to strengthen bond with each other as well.
