Tamil Nadu - Coimbatore   

Will it take off?

K.V. Prasad

Corporation's scheme to remove wastes

TO NOWHERE: Even if collected door-to-door, garbage will lie accumulated at yards of the local bodies in the absence of a disposal method. - PHOTO: S. SIVA SARAVANAN .

COIMBATORE: The Coimbatore Corporation says it pursues a Rs.18-crore waste management scheme to rid the city's roads and open spaces of garbage. Local bodies in the nearby suburbs also claim that they have a programme going and that includes the door-to-door collection of garbage.

But, there is no strong claim on garbage disposal. There is not even a waste-to-manure project in many local bodies. And, the Corporation is only getting into a pilot project.

Insufficient conservancy workers and funds for purchase of equipment have hampered waste management efforts by local bodies when they had not been open to the idea of involving private parties.

Private parties

When there had been no signs of a solution to these problems, the local bodies began to realise that private door-to-door collection would be the best way out. But, the elected representatives had opposed a garbage collection fee and still remain opposed to it.

The result is that private parties do not see garbage collection viable if there is no fee involved. They are also wary of the demand for supplying bins (separate ones to store biodegradable and non-biodegradable waste) free of cost.

The Corporation is planning a full-fledged scheme by obtaining 50 per cent funds from the Centre and 20 per cent from the State under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission.

With very little time on hand to implement the scheme and short on funds from its own coffers, the mission has come as a saviour to the Corporation. It can buy most of the equipment required for the scheme using these funds. And, the lifting of the ban on recruitment lends hopes of increasing the number of conservancy workers so that door-to-door collection can be implemented without involving private parties or a garbage fee.

It is, however, said that privatisation plans have not been shelved because of a growing realisation that the civic body may not be able to shoulder the entire burden of waste management. Sooner or later, it may have to be a monitoring agency or a facilitator than being directly involved in carting away garbage.

But, despite all these plans, a major problem persists: lack of space for disposal. The compost yard at Vellalore is a glaring example. As large spaces for this purpose become scarcer, waste management experts advocate local composting or community composting.

Under this, small groups of residents can identify open spaces near their colony and dig composting pits to produce manure from the biodegradable waste, mainly the kitchen waste. The non-biodegradable and recyclables can be handed over to the conservancy workers.

This reduces the burden on the implementing agency as it needs to work for the disposal of only these waste materials. Accumulation of biodegradable waste at the disposal sites will cease to be a concern for them.

Sensitisation

For this, the primary requirement is sensitising the residents to community composting. But, despite talking loud on waste management for at least six years, there is not much awareness on segregation of waste at source. Or, there is still resistance to it owing to misgivings such as stench and fly menace.

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