Separate your waste at home: a simple guide

What we throw away doesn’t disappear. Mixed together, food scraps, plastic and paper turn into a smelly heap that is hard to recycle and often ends up in a landfill or burnt in the open. Kept apart, most of it can become compost or raw material again. Separating waste is one of the most useful things a household can do for its neighbourhood.

What the rules say

The Solid Waste Management Rules, 2026, which came into force on 1 April 2026, make it mandatory to segregate waste at source into four streams. They replace the 2016 rules.

• Wet waste: kitchen waste, vegetables, fruit peels, meat and flowers. It can be composted.
• Dry waste: plastic, paper, metal, glass, wood and rubber. It goes for sorting and recycling.
• Sanitary waste: used diapers and sanitary pads, securely wrapped and kept separately.
• Special care waste: paint cans, bulbs, mercury thermometers and medicines, handed over to authorised collectors or collection centres.

Set up your home in ten minutes

• Keep two bins in the kitchen. Many cities use a green bin for wet waste and a blue bin for dry waste; follow the colours your local body uses.
• Keep a small covered bin or bag for sanitary waste, and wrap each item in newspaper before it goes in.
• Keep a box out of children’s reach for special care waste, such as old medicines, used bulbs and paint cans.
• Rinse food containers and wrappers before they go in the dry bin. Clean dry waste is much easier to recycle.

Turn wet waste into compost

If you have a little space, a pot, bucket or drum with a few holes can turn kitchen scraps into rich compost for your plants. Add wet waste in layers with dry leaves or cocopeat, keep it damp but not soggy, and mix it every few days. In a housing society, a shared composter in the garden can take care of many homes at once.

Small habits spread. When neighbours see your waste going out neatly separated, they start asking how you do it. That’s how a whole street changes.