Chennai: The city corporation is losing the battle against the piling up of plastic waste that has been choking the city. Plastic bags, less than 40 microns in thickness, are banned in the state. However, the rarely conducted raids against roadside shops that use them are a way to keep these out of the public domain.
In another effort, the civic body initiated laying plastic bituminous roads, which once again has turned into a disappointment as the percentage of plastic in bitumen is only a meagre 2 per cent.
The latest strategy of the corporation – gold for plastic — has also been a failure. The civic body announced rewards, ranging from half-gram gold coins to wrist watches every month in each of the 200 wards in return for plastic waste collected by residents. But the people did not participate in large numbers and source segregation proved to be a Herculean task for residents.
Only a few select groups, like members of Kuppathotti.com, a website which enables door to door collection of non-biodegradable waste, claimed that they successfully directed 20,000 customers to segregate plastic waste every month. “We collect household waste on call or from registered residents.
Out of 100 tonnes of waste we get from throughout Chennai, at least four to five tonnes amount to plastic waste,” says J. Sujatha, co-founder of Kuppathotti.com. “This is not a big quantity, but people do co-operate when we tell them to separate the non-biodegradable from the biodegradable waste,” she adds.
The corporation is now piloting a similar project by providing two bins to 875 households in Anna Nagar to segregate garbage at source. Repeated efforts to contact corporation health officer Dr P. Kuganantham proved futile. At least 7 per cent of the city’s 4,500 tonnes of garbage generated daily is plastic, according to city corporation officials.
