Pune: Roseland Residency in Pimple Saudagar and Palash Co-operative Housing Society in Wakad have emerged victorious among 29 housing societies in Pimpri-Chinchwad, competing under the Swachh Bharat Survey 2018 for the best housing society under waste segregation and composition category.
The aim of the competition was to promote zero garbage collection from housing societies.
Roseland Residency has been winning several awards since 2011 for their eco-friendly practices in disposing of garbage.
Santosh Maskar, President of Roseland Residency, said people have come forward to purchase or rent flats in their society, owing to their waste disposal practices. “We have bagged this award in the category of waste segregation and composition. There are 35 buildings in the society and around 500-600 gm of waste is generated per family every day. Every family separates dry waste, wet waste, e-waste, glass, plastic etc, and gives it to the waste pickers. Around 300 kg of compost is generated in our society in a span of 45 days from the wet waste, which is then used for trees.”
Palash Co-operative Housing Society has made it to the top rank this time, thanks to the composting methods used by the society members in just six months.
Kiran Vadgama, Chairperson of the society, said, “We started the process of waste segregation and composition in August 2017. We were able to convince the residents, who participated enthusiastically. We have installed 11 pairs of composting units.”
Pradnya Alate, a society member who actively promotes home composting, said, “There were several NGOs who helped us with the collection of e-waste. The water released from the composting units is used as fertiliser or insecticide, and for cleaning the drains.”
Alate added that many society members played a positive role in this initiative, along with Ajay Jadhav, Chief Health Inspector of Health Department of PCMC, Vinod Bendale and Prabhakar Taware, Assistant Health Officers.
