Waste outsourcing seen as a good move by Thimphu residents

It has been a month since much of the waste collection in Thimphu was outsourced to Greener Way. The Chief Operations Officer, Greener Way, Dorji Wangchuk, said that although most Thimphu residents are supportive of waste outsourcing, however, there are some people who are uncooperative. “We are working with these defaulters, and studying the problems with them and bring solutions. We provide different trucks and different routes,” Dorji Wangchuk said.

He said that Thimphu city is divided into three zones; south, central and north, but Greener Way, at the moment, looks only after the central and south zones.

Greener Way started its first day of waste collection from Motithang. Educational program on waste segregation into organic (fruit and vegetable) and inorganic (dry waste like glass bottle, plastics) was conducted, door to door, on the day by 30 Greener Way interns.

Dorji said that the Thimphu Thromde will be collecting fees according to their waste generation and discussion on collecting waste is still ongoing.

He said that Greener Way has leased 13 garbage trucks from Thimphu Thromde. “We are working early morning at 7:30am till 4pm in the evening. Each truck is deputed with maximum hours of collection of waste and the working hours have been increased,” Dorji Wangchuk added.

In upper Motithang, the waste is collected three times in a week; the organic waste are collected 2 times in a week and inorganic waste are collected once in a week. Greener Way is also collecting feedback from the public. Dorji added, “We will be making a bit of change in collection schedule. Every zone has different a environment, some generate more organic waste while other generate more inorganic waste.”

He said that the company is working on a database to figure out how much organic and inorganic waste is generated by Thimphu Thromde. The kitchen waste collected from households goes directly to a compost plant in Serbithang, which is currently managed by Thimphu Thromde. The dry wastes are brought to a recovery center at Greener Way. “In future, we are also looking forward to taking charge of the compost plant and manage it in an efficient manner,” Dorji said.

Greener Way aims to inform and educate the people on the importance of waste segregation as all waste goes to the landfill. However, Dorji said, “Educating public is most challenging and making them follow is quite difficult.” He said that some people are dumping waste illegally at night on the roads.

Greener Way also provides a special service to office goers with no one to take out the waste during the daytime. The busy officer goers can register with Greener Way and sign an undertaking upon which Green Way will issue a card and send a garbage truck in evening and early morning to collect the