Tamil Nadu   

Finding means to fight climate change

Photo: K. Manikandan

UNDER STUDY: A GAIA team at the compost yard of Mudichur panchayat near Tambaram on Tuesday. —

TAMBARAM: After visiting compost yards at a couple of locations in the southern suburbs of Chennai on Tuesday, a delegation of Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA) said there was a need for effective alternatives to combat climate change for which burning of garbage was an important cause.

The delegation of GAIA comprised Gigie Cruz from Philippines, Eugeney and Mariyna from Belarus, Silvani from Tanzania, Ronnie from Indonesia, Archana from Nepal and Sashank Dev from West Bengal.

Talking to reporters at Mudichur, Ms.Gigie Cruz said they had earlier visited compost yards built under private-public-government partnerships at Vellore and Pammal.

It was encouraging to note that all sections of the society were involved in recycling plastic waste and converting kitchen waste into manure, she said. Such models should be spread all across Asia where the problem of climate change due to burning of garbage was acute. A total of “60 per cent of garbage is bio-degradable waste and instead of recycling them, it is being burnt,” Ms. Gigie Cruz said.

The GAIA, she said, was an alliance of members from different environment groups from more than 80 countries around the world that campaigned for putting in place effective alternatives to incineration as part of their steps to combat climate change. In India, there were more than 50 groups that were members of the GAIA.

M. B. Nirmal, founder of Exnora International and members of Hand-in-Hand, a non-governmental organisation, briefed the delegation about how kitchen waste was converted into manure, recycling of plastic waste and how the income generated from the project was used for paying the salaries of staff employed in it.

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