Pune’s daily garbage collection has risen by 200 to 300 tonnes during the festive period from Dussehra to Diwali, reaching as much as 2,800 to 3,000 tonnes a day, according to the Pune Municipal Corporation’s solid waste management department.
The city normally collects around 2,200 to 2,300 tonnes of waste every day. The increase has been linked to household cleaning, festive shopping, decorations and the disposal of old and unused items during Diwali preparations.
Santosh Warule, an official from the municipal corporation’s solid waste management department, said the additional waste had begun accumulating from Dussehra and continued through the Diwali period. The reported increase represents an expansion of roughly 9% to 14% over the usual daily collection volume.
The additional waste includes sweet boxes, packaging from new clothes and other purchases, plastic material and cardboard from firecracker boxes. Household cleaning drives have also brought out discarded items that had remained unused in homes. These include old household goods, faulty electronic equipment, furniture and other materials considered unusable by residents.
The increase is taking place even as Pune’s roads and markets have seen somewhat lower footfall during the Diwali holidays, with many residents travelling outside the city. The report said that while public spaces have appeared quieter in some areas, household activity connected to cleaning, shopping and decoration has continued to generate additional waste.
The change in waste volumes highlights the operational pressure faced by the city’s collection and sanitation system during festival periods. A daily increase of several hundred tonnes requires collection teams to manage more material from homes as well as waste generated in public places and commercial areas. The reported figures also show how seasonal consumption and household clear-outs can affect municipal waste operations over a short period.
Municipal sanitation employees and waste pickers have continued working during the holiday period to maintain collection services and public cleanliness. Their work includes collecting waste from households in the morning and cleaning public spaces while much of the city observes the festival with family and away from regular work routines.
The report said thousands of waste pickers and municipal sanitation workers were continuing their duties during the Diwali holidays. Their services have allowed the city to maintain cleanliness despite the increased volume generated during the festive season.
The solid waste management department’s reported daily collection range provides the current measure of the festive increase. The department has not, in the supplied report, provided a separate breakdown of the additional waste by residential, commercial, packaging, electronic or bulky-waste categories. The reported figures cover the period from Dussehra to Diwali and indicate the scale of the seasonal pressure on Pune’s waste collection system.
