The generation of waste in the slums is one-fourth the amount of waste generated in lower-middle class and higher income households, according to a study conducted by students of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in collaboration with the city based SWaCH – Solid Waste Collection and Handling – a collective of wastepickers.
“The daily per capita waste generated in slums was about 78 gram. Compared to this, the waste generated in lower-middle income households was 304 gram per capita,” said Rachel Perlman, research assistant at the MIT Tata Centre who conducted a waste audit on the door-to-door waste collected by waste pickers in Pune as part of her research. She was speaking at a three-day workshop organized by SWaCH on Monday. Perlman conducted the waste audit in households that were divided into four different socio-economic categories – slums, lower-middle class, upper-middle class and upper class. “It is interesting that while the gap between the per capita waste generated in slums and lower-middle class households is very large, there isn’t a very large gap between lower-middle class and the two other categories,” she added.
Waste audit shows Pune slums generate little garbage
