Milieu of waste
The city witness drastic changes in temperature during winter and summers. As a result, the waste generation quantity in the city is not uniform throughout the year. The winters in the city are severe and the mean temperatures during winters are in a range of sub 5°C. Due to the severe cold, the commercial activities of the city come down drastically. As a result of which the waste quantity generation from commercial establishments and other related waste generators reduces. During the summer, the temperature becomes normal and increases 16°C to 29°C. In the summer increased tourism activities result in increased floating population and increased commercial activities. In summers, most of the hotels and other tourism-related institutions experience full occupancy. As a result of which the quantity of waste generated in the city increases.
The primary collection of waste in the city is conducted by a combination of the door to door collection, street sweeping and by collecting the waste disposed of in open locations. The waste from door to door collection is collected using hand carts, wheelbarrows, and Hopper Vehicles. The streets of old city areas are very narrow. The door to door collection, street sweeping and drain cleaning is conducted together in these narrow streets using hand carts and wheelbarrows. There are about 1200 Hand Carts and 50 Wheel Barrows for the said job. The wastes from the open points are cleared by safaikarmacharis and filled into tipper trucks. In the external areas of the city where the streets are broad, tricycles and Hopper Vehicles are used for door to door waste collection. There are about 1000 tri-cycles and 110 Hopper Vehicles for a door to door collection in the external areas. The waste collected using wheelbarrows and handcarts are disposed into nearest collector bins. The collection bins in the city are of 2 types- dumper bins of 3 m capacity and compactor bins of 1 m, 2.5 m, and 5.5 m. There are about 450 compactor bins and 110 dumper placer bins & 132 Twin Dumper Placer Bins placed across the city. These bins are cleared using 18 dumper placers and 10 compactor vehicles. The collector bins are cleared every day. The waste collected by tricycles, Hopper Vehicles, and 4 wheeler vehicles is disposed of waste depots/compactor vehicle. The wastes from waste depots are cleared by tipper trucks (Fig 1). The waste from the waste depots is loaded to tipper trucks using front end loaders. The waste from open points are cleared by safaikarmacharis using wheelbarrows and disposed into nearest bins (Fig 2). Single bin dumper placers, compactors, and tipper trucks are used for secondary transportation of waste from intermediate storage points to disposal site. The waste carried by these vehicles is dumped at the landfill site located at Achan which is at a distance of 7 km from the city centre.
The dumping site land has an area of 64.5acres / 516 Kanal and is owned by SMC. The waste received at the site is dumped into landfills and covered. The biomedical waste is handled separately by the generators.