The Solid Waste Management Rules, 2026, that have come into effect from Wednesday mandate four-stream segregation of solid waste at source into wet waste, dry waste, sanitary waste and special care waste. While strict enforcement of rules will be pivotal to achieve the intended goal in a fast-expanding city like Guwahati, waste segregation becoming a behavioural practice on the part of waste generators that include households, business establishments, government establishments, educational institutions, industries, markets, etc., and waste collectors deployed by Guwahati Municipal Corporation (GMC) is critical to achieve the transformative changes. The current practice by most waste generators in the city is to store mixed waste in a single bin and hand it over to waste collectors who come to collect it at doorsteps. The segregation at source and collection and transportation in a segregated manner being pushed simultaneously is crucial to build confidence among people that their effort to contribute towards improving waste management really matters. If the waste collector comes with a pull cart without separate compartments for segregated waste or if they do not stick to colour codes of a garbage collecting van for transporting segregated wastes in segregated compartments, then the residents will not be motivated to segregate wastes at source. The GMC deployed colour-coded tippers for collecting and transporting dry and wet waste in segregated compartments; these remain unutilised for their intended purpose. The new rules mandate that every local body or the concessionaire or third party authorised by the local body involved in the collection, segregation and transportation of solid waste shall be responsible for ensuring that the vehicles used for the collection and transportation of solid waste are equipped with appropriate size and capacity to provide separate compartments for wet waste and dry waste and provide necessary arrangements for separate collection of sanitary waste, special care waste, and horticultural or agricultural waste. They should also ensure that no intermixing of waste streams during collection and transportation occurs during transportation and that the waste stream remains segregated until it reaches the designated waste processing facility. If the GMC rushes to procure new tippers with four compartments to implement the new rules without first ensuring a genuine shift in behavioural practice of waste segregation, it will risk another round of investment of taxpayer funds without outcomes. The rules clearly spell out the duties of every waste generator, and they shall segregate and store the waste generated by them in four separate streams and hand over segregated waste to authorised waste pickers or waste collectors as per the direction or notification by the local authorities from time to time. Before anything else, the local body must ensure that every waste generator uses separate bins for storing segregated wastes. Waste collectors refusing to accept unsegregated waste will gradually push unwilling waste generators to procure separate bins and fall in line with enforced segregation norms. Old habits die hard, and without sustained pressure at the collection point, many waste generators will continue to resist segregation. Parallel to such sustained efforts, imposition of penalties for throwing or dumping waste on the streets will be necessary to ensure that erring waste generators who resist segregation are disciplined through firm, consistent enforcement and compelled to comply. Widespread publicity for the new rules is essential to inform waste generators about their duties and responsibilities. They can be encouraged to mark different waste bins and label them properly to start practicing segregation. The GMC too can retrofit the existing tipper by dividing the dry and wet compartments into four compartments and colour code them to start collecting and transporting segregated waste so that by the time a new tipper with four compartments is procured by GMC, the waste generators and collectors fully develop the habit of segregation from source to waste processing facilities. The city having optimal capacity to process the entire volume of waste generated is critical to prevent heaps of mixed and unprocessed waste from growing bigger at dumpsites. Mixed waste hampers optimal utilisation of processing facilities, as segregation first needs to be carried out according to material type for which the facility has been built. Underutilisation of processing capacity and the additional labour required to segregate the materials reduce the plant’s commercial viability. No private entity will be keen to invest in a plant that suffers underutilisation, low throughput and reduced profit margin, and ignoring this reality led to many waste processing facilities lying idle across cities and towns. Lessons must be learnt from failure to fully enforce the prohibition on single-use plastics, especially the plastic carry bags with prohibited thickness which continue to circulate in the city. The new solid waste management rules can really transform the capital city into a garbage-free city, but without behavioural changes and sufficient processing facilities, they will add to a long list of policies that look good but have remained on paper.