When waste management has become a problem, Jammu has shown the way by launching `wealth from waste’ campaign last year from Narwal Mandi.
The campaign is about recycling waste as a resource for income generation. Women from self Help Groups of State rural livelihood mission based Bishnah and Aknoor were trained free of cost to make cloth bags. While launching the campaign, 800 cloth bags were distributed to replace plastic bags around the Narwal Fruit Mandi.
The exercise, reports said, has already generated an income of around 28000 rupees.
The authorities have plans to implement the programme across the state to replace plastic/polythene bags completely.
In addition to wealth from waste campaign, the department of rural sanitation also initiated `dry leaf compositing’. As per this programme, dry leaves are converted into organic compost. The department has held a workshop in collaboration of Chennai based Indian Green leaves.
The story of the department’s eco-friendly activities do not stop here. An official said that the department was planning to convert cow dung into bio-fertiliser and bio-gas under Gobar Dhan Programme.
A Srinagar based environmentalist said that the authorities need to launch such programmes in urban areas especially in the city of Srinagar where waste management has been posing a big challenge.
He said the city of Srinagar produces enough solid waste to manufacture gas and electricity. “This will ensure scientific disposal of solid waste and produce energy as well,” he said adding that such experiments, though on a small scale, had yielded good results in Kerela where people use kitchen waste to produce bio-gas.
According to him, excessive use of plastic and polythene had wreaked havoc with the environment of state, which is too fragile to be subjected to such vandalism. “The use of cloth bags and producing energy from solid waste must be launched across the state,” he said.