In Chennai, the disposal of dry waste to become smarter
Posted on: 08/Aug/2019 10:24:59 AM - No. of views : (2520)
In the last 3 months, the corporation of Chennai has set up as many as 70 recovery centres for dry wastes like plastic, metal, rubber, paper, glass and textiles etc. The main aim was to encourage waste segregation by the residents and by the conservancy workers.
It should be taken into account that the waste deposited at the material recovery centres at the corporation ward offices would be re-segregated and sold to vendors, rag pickers and NGOs for re-usage. To create usable products from the wastes, corporation officials as well as the conservancy workers are utilizing innovative ideas. It must be noted that in Valasarawakkam in Chennai, a bean bag has been created after shredding the thermcol waste.
It has been pointed out by Satyarupa Shekhar, director of urban governance citizen consumer civic action group that they were creating awareness about these material recovery centres among resident welfare associations. She then spoke about how there are plans to set up such facilities inside the buildings also and how the conservancy workers could collect from these also.
Information is each centre created at the ward level, zonal levels needs 300 to 2000 sq ft of space. More such facilities plus an awareness centre have been planned by the civic body and from these residents could get technical knowledge. For tracking the type of waste, there would be an office with computer and there would also be a retail sales point from where the products made could be sold.
The objective was to make sure that the waste was segregated and this was stated by an official belonging to the Chennai Corporation. People could also deposit the segregated waste by themselves if they do not want to hand it to the workers. The official concluded that sanitary waste could be deposited as hazardous waste. Point is waste deposited at these facilities would not be sent to landfills. Associating with NGOs is done so that the NGO�s could pick up textile material to make clothes. It is worthy to note that by associating with other self help groups glass bottles could be made into lamps.
According to Satyarupa Shekhar, every waste has got some value and high value products could be made out of those waste. To make wallets and bags by using tetra packs, discussions with NGO is going on. To shred waste and it make it useful, machinery would be set up at these facilities. This was as per Mr. Prakash, corporation commissioner of Chennai.
