India, March 27 -- Thirty-five-year-old Divya Dhingra, on her move from Mumbai to Gurugram in 2022, brought along with her the practice of waste segregation, which was large ignored in the Millennium City, she said. She spearheaded a campaign to set up a community recycling module, which has currently extended to her entire neighbourhood, to lessen the increasing burden on landfill sites.

A resident of Tulip Violet, Sector 69, Dhingra says that personal accountability can transform a city's image. "In Mumbai, every resident took responsibility for segregating waste. When I noticed that this was largely missing in Gurugram, I could have blamed the system or officials-but I chose to take action instead," she said.

In October 2023, Dhingra...