Cities of Allepey and Mysore Lead India’s Zero Waste Urban Model

Several cities in India have started implementing successful waste management policies, hoping to inspire the rest of the country.

The municipality of Allepey, which numbers about 40,000 households, have installed portable and fixed biogas plants, in a program subsidized by the government agencies. Households are also encouraged to compost their organic waste.

Allepey has introduced another innovation — a centralized aerobic composting unit, where waste is processed into compost within 90 days. Abandoning traditional waste management, the municipality encourages people to segregate waste, while informal recyclers collect and sell.

According to NDTV, now the efforts are made to spread the success of Allepey’s zero waste experiment to the rest of Kerala. 

Mysore is also setting an inspiring example — the residents are trained to segregate wet organic waste from dry waste, using differently colored bins.

The waste is then segregated in 24 categories, labeled, and sold to scrap merchants who sell it to recyclers or industries who can reuse the materials.

Such a decentralized waste management model is made possible by municipal resources, civil society, and a lot of cooperation from residents and businesses. The result — the street of Mysore are free of litter and nearly all the waste gets recycled. 

The common thing about both cites is that their people have successfully learned to separate organic from dry waste while implementing both large and decentralized waste management models.

Watch the video from NDTV below: