VILLUPURAM: A garbage dump without the usual stench that triggers a heavy wave of nausea? Impossible to even think of! At a waste segregation centre in Auroville, where discards from nearly 10,000 people are collected, the absence of the familiar stench of garbage is no accident. The answer lies not in expensive technology but in what happens before the waste arrives.
On a cloudy afternoon, when TNIE visited the EcoService facility in Auroville and asked Sumit (57), executive manager, about it, he said, “Residents are also part of our service. We encourage them to use decomposed organic waste as compost in their gardens and help them set up composting units in their backyards. We also ask them to clean the waste before handing it over to us so that foul smell is removed at the source itself. That is why there is no stench here, even though waste generated by nearly 10,000 people, including visitors, reaches us every day.”
Run by an 11-member team, mostly women, the initiative helps keep Auroville’s 20 sq km international township clean by diverting nearly 80% of the collected waste from landfills. “What we collect here is not garbage but waste material. Most of it can be recycled or reused,” Sumit said.
The service began in 1992, when Auroville was still developing, and the need for organised waste management was relatively limited. The initiative was started with “just two people and a cycle rickshaw”.
With Auroville extending across parts of Tamil Nadu and the Union Territory of Puducherry, the team developed its own system to meet the township’s waste management needs. While in India, responsibilities are usually outsourced, and the government is expected to do everything, Sumit said citizens take responsibility in Auroville. “The entire process is a citizen-led initiative. We ask residents to send food waste directly to composting units, which we have been using from the beginning to turn barren land green,” he added.
The team collects 500-600 kg of waste a day, amounting to around 12 to 14 tonnes a month. Of this, nine to 11 tonnes are diverted from landfills, while less than 20% is sent for disposal.
The key to this, the team says, is meticulous segregation into six categories – paper, plastic, metal, glass, sanitary waste and non-recyclable materials. Each category is further sorted according to the type of material, while items that can be reused are directed to appropriate destinations.
“Everything has value, and segregation helps us recover that value from waste. However, multilayer plastics (MLP) and thermocol cannot be recycled or reused through our usual processes. Fortunately, the government is introducing new methods, and MLP waste is now sent to sugar or cement factories to be used as fuel,” Sumit said.
While using such waste as fuel is not an ideal solution, he said, it helps reduce the volume sent to landfills. “We have reached a stage where we cannot eliminate pollution entirely. We can’t call it a complete success because that will be possible only when we achieve zero landfill,” he added.
Residents and establishments pay a nominal fee based on the type and weight of the waste they hand over to the team. Those who segregate their waste at source are charged less. The facility also maintains a collection of reusable items that can be taken home and put to further use.
For V Sarala (55) of Alankuppam, who has worked at the facility for two decades, said, “This system should be spread across the country because garbage is becoming a major headache for local bodies. I even tried to introduce this method in my village, but people did not understand its importance.”
Residents, too, have come to appreciate the difference the system makes. Ravindra Solanki (45), a native of Gujarat who has lived in Auroville for nearly 13 years, said the township’s approach stood apart from waste management practices elsewhere in India. “They regularly come to my place and collect waste according to their fixed schedule. I have never seen waste overflowing anywhere in the township. They also encourage us to minimise the amount of waste we generate,” he said.
Another resident, Jonas Suchanek (30), said the system had made people more mindful of both the waste they generated and how they disposed of it. “This is our waste management system, and it makes us more conscious of how we handle waste and teaches us the importance of segregation. I have seen a massive increase in garbage across India, and it is going to become a major problem in the future. People must take responsibility for their own waste. A system like the one we have in Auroville is needed across the country,” he said.
Sumit said the facility had recently been receiving visitors from different parts of the country, keen to learn how to manage waste in other residential complexes. School students, too, visit to understand the principles of segregation, recycling and reuse. The service has also expanded to nearby private establishments, all of which must adhere to the system’s rules.
As cities drown in expanding landfills, Auroville offers a powerful lesson — waste management starts at home. True sustainability relies on household segregation, preserving the reusability of materials, and a collective commitment to see value where others see trash.
(Edited by Swarnali Dutta)