DCC has identified 56 zones of the city, with plans to surround the garbage bins in the zones with 6 feet high brick walls to oblige people to dispose wastes inside the bins instead of on the streets, sources said.

The new scheme also involves paving the floorboards of the garbage containers and connecting them with Wasa sewerage lines to bring some ease in the flow of liquid waste. Water hosepipes would also be available near the containers so that DCC cleaners can hose away the scattered trash and reduce the foul odours.

"The walls will make sure that the trash will not stay scattered on the streets and also stop foul odours from spreading," said an official from DCC's waste management department.

"We also have plans to deploy full time sweepers to make sure that garbage is disposed in the proper way.

The sweepers will clean the scattered garbage with hose pipes while the linked sewerage line would carry the water along with liquid wastes," he added.

According to sources from the waste management department of DCC, the project is still in its initial stage. In the first phase of the project, DCC has divided the city into different zones that need major refurbishments in the waste disposal management.

"Currently we are planning to start the project in the selected zones. We will also require assistance from other authorities for the success of this project," said the official.

Under the first phase of the project, DCC will initiate 2 pilot projects by this month. Further continuance of the project would depend on the success of the pilot projects.

DCC officials believe that the initiatives would help them bring some major changes in the very outlook of the city and somewhat tackle the problems in the waste management.

DCC is the sole organisation responsible for the management of around 3 to 4 thousand tonnes of waste generated in the city every day. Out of this, only around 1,500 tonnes are disposed properly, while the rest are left unattended and dumped locally, suggests a joint study from Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and DCC.

DCC has only around 5 thousand cleaners for sweeping the streets and waste collection and disposal activities, that means less than one sweeper per thousand people.

While households usually dump their waste in the nearby bins and containers located on the street, some specific neighbourhoods have arranged house-to-house collection of garbage through community initiatives. However, all the household, commercial, institutional and medical wastes are disposed in the same bins on the streets.

Although the DCC gave the responsibility of waste management of certain areas to private organisations, this scheme received poor feedback from the city dwellers.

DCC officials admitted that the problem lies in the very infrastructure as it lacks proper co-ordination. But they believe that their new project to revamp the garbage bins would be a huge step to ease the overall situation of waste management.

"We have to improve the whole system. If implemented properly, the new scheme would improve the overall situation in the garbage management in the long run," said an official from the waste management department of DCC.