The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : They do a clean job, though unrecognised

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Monday, Aug 18, 2008
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

They do a clean job, though unrecognised

Vidya Venkat

Need to collect rag-pickers into a system stressed

— PHOTO: A. MURALITHARAN

ECO-FRIENDLY: A rag-picker at work in the city.

CHENNAI: They are always referred to with utter contempt, but the job they do is “wonderful” for the city’s environment, say experts.

With indiscriminate dumping and burning of garbage in the Pallikaranai marshland back in focus, now that the Madras High Court has intervened, experts in solid waste management and environmentalists say streamlining of rag-pickers is the best way to reduce the load of garbage reaching our dump yards.

According to sources in the Chennai Corporation, the city generates 3,500 tonnes of garbage every day, of which, 1,800 tonnes reaches the Kodungaiyur dump yard and about 1,400 tonnes is dumped at Perungudi, right in the middle of the marshland.

The problem, say experts, is with the centralised system of garbage collection and disposal that exists in the city at present. If this system is decentralised by engaging rag-pickers at the local level, garbage collected from homes and street corners could be segregated and given for recycling to scrap-dealers, instead of dumping them all at one place. A similar initiative was being conducted successfully in Pune, where Lakshmi Narayan as general secretary of the Kagad Kach Patra Kashtakari Panchayat (Scrapcollector’s union) has organised waste pickers to collect, segregate and recycle waste from all over the city since 1993. A similar model could be replicated here, say experts.

M.B. Nirmal, Founder of Exnora International says, “If rag-pickers are encouraged to thrive in the city, only 400 to 500 tonnes of garbage will reach our yards.” He suggests that rag-pickers be organised into a union and deployed in allocated areas to clear and segregate garbage. “Rag-pickers can be made micro-entrepreneurs. With some financial support they can graduate to higher levels of waste management such as scrap dealing and trading,” he suggests.

According to sources in the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board leachate coming from the dump sites is highly toxic. Sources say that unlimited decomposition of waste takes place inside the dump yard and the methane gas formed here fuels the burning in dump yards. This also points to the fact that storing heaps of garbage at one site for a long time itself is a bad idea.

Actor Charu Hassan, a member of Exnora for 14 years now, expresses concern over the poor working condition of rag-pickers. He suggests that they be provided with gum boots, rubber gloves and the necessary gear for work.Environmentalist Jayasree Vencatesan from the NGO Care Earth says the contributions of rag-pickers to making the city clean has been unrecognised thus far. Rag-pickers are adept in collecting garbage and know well how to put it to good use. “We should be able to put their natural understanding of waste management to the best possible use,” she says.

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