NSS - Waste Segregation Report
On 10th September 2023, a waste segregation program was organized by the National Service Scheme, IIT Kanpur, under the guidance of Prof. Niraj Mohan Chawake. The program included spreading awareness, survey reports, and feedback from various citizens residing within the premises of the Campus, ranging from Undergraduate students to the senior most professors teaching at IIT Kanpur. The number of responses received was overwhelming. Over 90 percent of the campus residents cooperated and spared a few minutes of their time to fill out a feedback form presented to them by the volunteers.
Waste Segregation is a very important aspect of maintaining cleanliness in our surroundings and leading a healthy and hygienic life. The basic aspect of this process includes separating the waste generated into the separate dustbins according to the nature of the waste. For example, all kinds of dry waste (such as paper, glass, etc.) should be disposed of into blue colored dustbins whereas the wet waste (such as vegetable and fruit waste, left-over food, etc.) needs to be thrown into a green colored dustbin. There are separate dustbins for sanitary waste as well as electric waste.
Upon receiving feedback from the campus residents, we got to know that this segregation of waste rarely takes place in the campus community. The adults living in the community mentioned that they separate the waste into two categories (wet and dry waste respectively) on a regular basis, but the garbage collector does not maintain that separation and mixes all the waste into one container. This leads to unnecessary manual work by both the faculty members and the workers who separate the garbage in the subsequent stages. Additionally, not enough dustbins are kept on one floor of a block in the faculty residential areas and are not cleaned properly on a regular basis. This leads to the accumulation of germs and unwanted insects inside the garbage box as well as the residential area. Diving into some of the data collected by the volunteers, we get to know that a little over 50% of the residents were already familiar with the process of waste segregation. Nearly one fourth of the population was somewhat aware and the remaining people were not aware of the process at all. When asked how often they segregated the waste, approximately 50% of the population responded “always” whereas 35% and 15% of the people responded “sometimes” and “rarely” respectively.
