The Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation (BMC) will set up several material recovery stations — large covered facilities where solid waste collection teams can empty their carts and recyclable items can be sorted before trucks carry the rest to compactor stations nearby.
A senior official in the solid waste department of the BMC said they are planning to set up 19 such centres in Salt Lake, Kestopur, Baguiati and Rajarhat.
“Recyclable items such as those made of plastic, rubber, glass and metals will be separated from the ones that are not recyclable at the material recovery stations,” the official said.
“Once the recyclable items are separated, the rest of the waste will be loaded on trucks and carried to the nearest compactor stations.”
The recyclable items will be sent to recycling centres. The civic body has decided to tie up with companies that provide recycling and upcycling facilities.
“The entire idea to have such stations is to ensure that we can recycle and reuse those items that are non-biodegradable. This will help minimise the volume of waste sent to the dumping ground,” said Debraj Chakraborty, the mayoral council member in the BMC in charge of the solid waste management department.
Currently, there is one such station in the BMC area, near Central Park in Salt Lake.
This newspaper has reported multiple times that garbage collection and disposal have taken a hit and piles of waste are often seen along roads and on empty plots.
The civic body is also mulling to install bins — drop box-like facilities — at various places in Salt Lake and Rajarhat-Gopalpur for disposal of e-waste such as discarded hard disks, laptops, mobile phones, television sets and lamps.