Clinton Vaz is a soft spoken, young civil engineer from Goa. Looking at this unassuming man it is hard to imagine that he is at the helm of a revolutionary initiative for a garbage free Goa. “When I moved from the city [Margao] to the village, I realised that waste disposal was a big problem here. I thought if I can manage my own waste, I can help other people do the same. I devised my own system. That was 10-15 years back,” he says. He feels that the government’s promise for a zero-waste Goa by 2020 should be taken with a pinch of salt.
A small coastal state with just under 2 million people, Goa sees massive tourist footfall every year. Just in 2016, over 6 million tourists came to visit. A short drive around some of the most popular beaches in North Goa reveals heaps of garbage strewn among the coconut groves and lush greenery. The tourism industry adds to the problem by generating huge amounts of waste.
vRecycle collects household waste segregated into wet (organic) and dry (inorganic). A small organisation of only 20 employees, they collect and sort 3-4 tonnes of waste per day. Of this about half is organic waste that is composted yielding natural soil fertiliser. This goes back to the households for use in their gardens. The dry waste is sorted into twenty different categories. Most of this is recycled. Only 1% of the waste which is completely non-disposable or recyclable, mostly soiled diapers and menstrual hygiene products, is left over after the entire process. vRecycle currently stores this in their warehouse as even the municipal authorities have no solution to deal with this. Most of the employees are migrants who were informal waste pickers. They are all provided with safety gear when collecting and sorting the waste.
His model demonstrates how achievable the dream of a zero-waste Goa is, without investing billions of rupees in unnecessary technology.
Source and Credit:https://thelogicalindian.com/story-feed/exclusive/zero-waste-goa/