Mahim school kids to spread message of waste segregation

With a view to encourage households to segregate garbage, the advanced locality management (ALM) from Mahim is roping in school children to spread the message to all homes. The ALM had also undertaken a drive to educate garbage collectors to collect only segregated garbage failing which they will lose their salary.

According to Bulu Saldanha, member of the G-North Citizen Forum and head functionary of the ALM, despite numerous reminders to societies, many households fail to segregate their garbage. “We have conducted door-to-door campaigns to educate the people of garbage segregation. We have also held meetings of citizens with BMC officials where the need for segregation and its benefits have been explained but many households have failed to comply hence we had to look at alternative methods of reaching out to the residents,” said Ms Saldanha.

Based on the success of the initiative of Agni to ask school children to coax their parents to vote, Ms Saldanha said the ALM decided to use the same method for garbage segregation too. She also said that as a further step to encourage households to segregate garbage, the ALM held a meeting of garbage collectors and told them not to collect non-segregated garbage. “If the collectors stop collecting the garbage, the households will be forced to fall in line. We have also warned the collectors of them being fined if they accept non-segregated garbage. We are hoping that these initiatives are in place by next week,” she said.

Farouqe Shaikh, a Cadell Road resident, also a member of ALM welcomed the move and said that if people do not comply with requests some forceful measures are needed and the decision to rope in school kids will go a long way in making the initiative a success.