Decentralised processing: treating wet waste where it is generated, instead of trucking it away.

Processing the biodegradable fraction at or near the point of generation (inside a campus, township, hotel or institution) instead of transporting it to a central facility. It is what the Solid Waste Management Rules 2016 expect of bulk waste generators, and it removes the heaviest and most putrescible part of the stream from collection and transport altogether.

An organic waste converter is enclosed, compact and fast, suited to premises with little space and a need for tidy operation, but it consumes power and needs a bulking agent and curing area. Windrow or pit composting costs far less to install and run but needs land, management and odour control. Bio-methanation recovers biogas and handles high-moisture food waste well, but demands cleanly segregated feed and more attentive operation.

On measured daily wet-waste generation with an allowance for peak days, not on occupancy alone, a canteen serving one lunch sitting and a residential tower with the same headcount generate very different quantities and moisture. Undersizing leads to waste accumulating unprocessed; gross oversizing leaves an expensive machine running below its efficient load.

A covered, ventilated space with water supply, washdown and drainage; storage for the bulking agent; a curing area, since output from a converter is not mature compost when it leaves the machine; a leachate route; power of the right rating; and a trained operator with a daily routine. Installations that skip the curing area or the operator are where most decentralised units quietly stop being used.

It should be planned for before the unit is bought: used in the premises landscaping, given to a horticulture contractor, or supplied to an offtaker. Compost produced with no destination accumulates, and the unit stops being fed. Output quality, which depends directly on how clean the incoming segregation is, largely determines whether an offtaker will accept it.

By enclosure and ventilation, by processing the day's waste promptly rather than letting it accumulate, by correct moisture control through bulking agents, by draining and treating leachate rather than letting it pool, and by regular washdown. Odour complaints are almost always a symptom of an operating routine that has slipped, not of the technology itself.

It addresses the central one. That the biodegradable fraction generated on the premises is processed there so far as possible. It does not cover the rest: the dry recyclable fraction still has to reach authorised recyclers, domestic hazardous waste has to go through its own channel, and records still have to be maintained and reported to the local body.

They are stored separately and handed to authorised waste collectors or recyclers, with only genuine rejects going into the municipal stream for disposal. A campus that installs an organic waste converter and continues to mix its dry fraction has solved half the problem and will still be receiving the local body's attention on the other half.