50 % of City garbage is compostable: Experts

Rajendranagar: Of the 4,500 metric tonnes of waste produced in Hyderabad a day, at least 50 per cent is compostable, say experts. This can be used for helping grow organic food locally.

According to experts, soil requires manure or compost to make it fit for cultivation. Due to shrinking space, urban residents are now resorting to composting their wet waste in pots for plants. "Of the garbage produced daily in the City, at least 50 per cent is compostable. The organic waste can be composted to enrich the soil, in order to produce vegetables and fruits and also to create a micro-climate for trees and shrubs, which are essentially required for afforestation," argued agri specialist Narsimha Reddy.

For example, Rajendranagar circle, on City outskirts, alone generates 300 metric tons of garbage a day that carries large amounts of green waste, as this part of the City has a myriad number of trees and plants of all sizes straight on countryside in homes and backyards.

"With a total 80,000 households in the Circle, this area generates a whopping 300 metric tonnes of garbage a day through door-

to-door collection. There are around 800 sanitary workers with 100 tippers and approximately 90 autos to cart away the trash every day to Jawaharnagar dump yard. This task could be averted if the open spaces in the colonies here could be used to promote compost yards," said Anjaneulu, Sanitary Inspector, GHMC, Rajendranagar Circle.

Every day, he said, the exceptional amount of green waste extricated from different types of trees in residential colonies, if meticulously used, could produce good amounts of compost and organic manure to promote nurseries and maintain an eco-friendly environment along with revenue generation.

"We have appropriate remediation mechanisms to stinking garbage menace, but we aren't taking sincere enough steps to heed to those ideas. People are inherently inclined towards nature, but resist to invest in causes associated with betterment of our natural ecosystem. For instance, by transforming organic waste into wealth, we all can escape the detrimental effects of waste, and benefit from its yield. Such an effort, if rightly

Invested, can produce amiable results for everyone. This idea can also be replicated beyond Shastripuram Colony in the long run,' argued M A H Asif, a resident of Shastripuram Colony, who spearheads the moment against the illegal plastic industries in the residential colony.