Four-way waste segregation made mandatory in Erode district

The Erode district administration has mandated households, commercial establishments, and institutions in the district to segregate municipal solid waste at source into four categories before handing it over to the authorised door-to-door collection staff, in accordance with the Solid Waste Management Rules, 2026.

As per the 2011 Census, the district has a population of 22.51 lakh and 6,58,071 households, including 3,38,355 in urban areas and 3,19,716 in rural.

The new rules require waste to be segregated at source and handed over to authorised door-to-door collection staff in prescribed colour-coded bins or bags.

District Collector S. Kandasamy said, in a release, that the four categories were wet waste, dry waste, sanitary waste and special care waste (domestic hazardous waste). The segregation would facilitate separate collection, transportation and processing of waste.

According to the collection schedule announced by the district administration, wet, dry and sanitary waste will be collected daily. Wet waste should be handed over in green bins, dry waste in blue and sanitary waste in red. Special care waste should be handed over in black bins and will be collected every Wednesday.

Wet waste includes kitchen and food waste, fruit and vegetable waste, flowers, tea leaves, coffee grounds and other biodegradable waste. Dry waste includes paper, cardboard, newspapers, books, plastic, metal, glass, textiles and packaging materials.

Sanitary waste includes used sanitary napkins, diapers and other hygiene waste. Special care waste includes expired medicines, paint and pesticide containers, CFL bulbs, tube lights, batteries, mercury-containing items, household e-waste and other notified domestic hazardous waste.

The Collector appealed to all waste generators to hand over only source-segregated waste to authorised staff on the designated days. Mixed waste will not be accepted for collection, he added.