For the past two weeks, the GHMC garbage collectors at Dasaram Basti at SR Nagar have stopped collecting plastic bottles and other materials over the fear of contracting COVID-19, “We are afraid. What if the plastic has been used by someone who is infected? If one person falls sick at this slum the whole slum will fall sick,” says Nagamani, a Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) garbage truck driver and a resident of the slum.
Nagamani keeps his distance from outsiders who visit the slum. “Please stay one meter away,” he insists as he fetches the overused face mask from his garbage truck. Since the 21-day lockdown began, the residents of the 140 homes at the slum are an anxious lot. “People throw masks and latex gloves in the garbage and they end up in the slum where we segregate the waste. We have stopped collecting such items,” he says.
At a distance, a speaker in an autorickshaw appointed by the GHMC asks the public to maintain social distance and maintain hygiene, the particulars of the announcement muffled by the distance. “No one, not even a ward member has come here yet to enquire if we have food to eat, neither has the GHMC provided us with any masks or sanitisers. They haven’t used hypochlorite or disinfectant to sanitise our streets,” adds an agitated Nagamani.
It was on March 18 that the Central Pollution Control Board under the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, issued guidelines for handling, treatment, and disposal of waste generated at hospitals by COVID-19 patients. The Pollution Control Board (PCB) in Telangana says the same guidelines can be used by municipalities to instruct garbage collectors to handle garbage. “The guidelines are for everybody, including the waste collector and those transporting and handling the waste. The waste has to be incinerated. We have circulated the guidelines to all districts asking them to implement the guidelines for waste disposal, not just for COVID-19," said Murali Mohan, Chief Environmental Scientist, (PCB).
Under the guidelines, the solid waste generated needs to be disposed of as per Solid Waste Management Rules (SWM) rules 2016 – meaning, the garbage would end up at slums like Dasaram Basti from where they are segregated and sold for scrap. The guidelines insist on adequate Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and regular sanitisation for workers, but only for those handling biomedical wastes.
Apart from these guidelines from the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs had also issued an advisory for maintaining cleanliness during the lockdown period.
The municipality is to take up special cleaning drives and provide all household residents under quarantine with marked yellow garbage bags for disposal of the wet and dry waste. This waste is to be transported separately without mixing with regular waste from other households. The vehicles collecting this waste should be thoroughly disinfected and cleaned daily, and the waste from quarantined households should be disposed of only through incineration.
Other wastes – used masks or gloves from non-quarantine households – should be treated as domestic hazardous waste wrapped in a separate wrapper, collected and transported separately without mixing with normal household waste.
The garbage collectors are to be given fresh protective kits daily.
But none of the GHMC garbage collectors TNM spoke to at Dasaram Basti and at Miyapur slum were made aware of these guidelines or advisory by the municipality, which has also not provided them with awareness campaigns for precautionary measures against COVID-19.
Since the lockdown began, garbage collection has also reduced, says M Ashok, another sanitation worker and a resident of the basti. “People have stopped paying us for our service, they say come next month,” says Ashok. Each household pays anywhere between Rs 50 to 75 for garbage collection. Since the lockdown, residential apartments and households have deferred payments, “They are asking us if we have digital payment options like Google Pay or PhonePe. We don’t know how to use those things,” he adds.
T Srinivasan Buddhiraju, general secretary, United Federation of Resident Welfare Associations. says residential apartment complexes in the city have reduced garbage collection from daily to once in three days. “Some have deferred payments as they want to hold on to cash as many don’t want to risk using ATMs, as it is touched by many people. They are more willing to pay using digital payments. We will talk to the resident associations and try to help.”
Officials from GHMCs solid waste management division were unavailable for comment.