The Germans and most other families in the developed world have four bins to segregate garbage at home — one is for glass, the second for metal, the third for paper and the fourth for organic waste.

In contrast, we continue to dump all garbage together, ignoring the repeated pleas from the civic administration and environmentalists to segregate waste between biodegradable and non-degradable by keeping just two separate bins at home.

This is just one of the waste woes of the city. Chennai has one crore tonnes of stinking garbage in two massive dumps right inside the city with its 70-lakh people adding about 4,500 tonnes of waste to these dumps every day.

“Waste to energy and waste water to clean water are important subjects that need to be studied and implemented in India,” said Eugen Egetenmeir, managing director of Messe Munchen International, a leading trade fair organiser from Germany.

The civil administration and the residents in India should work together to achieve the target of potable water from taps, said Egetenmeir. “Indians should look at reuse of water through irrigation and invest in drinking water through desalination plants,” he said.

The government of India has planned to invest $11 billion on water supply and wastewater disposal and $8 billion for solid waste disposal by December 2012, Egetenmeir noted. Investment in the latest technologies that would help protect the environment, he said.

Egetenmeir cited an example of how Germany believes in high activity of recycling solid wastes and said his company would provide a big box for visitors at the New Munich Trade Fair Centre to throw their unused cell phones. “We will recycle the waste by using the valuable parts and display it to the world,” he said. The centre will host an International trade fair for water, sewage, waste and raw materials management from May 7-11 this year.