Garbage segregation keeps eluding corporation

Chennai: The Chennai corporation is deliberating the option of mass media advertising to get Chennaiites to segregate domestic garbage before handing over to the collector.

Officials told DC that the level of outreach planned is likely to be on par with the warning campaign for cigarettes. “It is one of the key points that has been discussed. Advertising on radio, television and even during movie screenings seems like the only way to reach a greater number of people,” an official said.

On October 2, the first anniversary of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, the corporation reiterated its desire to implement an effectual source segregation practice in the city. A statement from the local body said that garbage collectors would stick notices on houses, hand out pamphlets and hold awareness rallies to drive home the message of segregating garbage.

But the move failed to elicit response from city dwellers. Garbage is still handed over to the collector, or thrown with disgust into the roadside bin, collectively and wrapped inside a plastic cover.

As DC found out, when it visited one of the more kempt wards in the city – ward 181 – referred to as a VIP ward for the area houses many who’s who of the state bureaucracy, the awareness drives have amounted to very little. A stately apartments complex, with as many as 187 flat dwellers in it, located on Valmiki street generates the kind of garbage that chokes the solitary bin that the corporation has provided them with, fills up two more barrels which the apartment welfare committee paid for and uses, overflows out of them all, eats up the footpath next to the bin and takes up around five feet of the adjacent road.

Ramky, the private garbage collection entity, in charge of these affairs in zone 13 where the ward is located, said it is helpless. “For such a large apartment complex, they don’t even have a compost yard inside. Because over 95 per cent of the waste that they [apartment] dump is kitchen and leaf waste,” said an onsite supervisor for Ramky.

It takes at least 45 minutes to clean up the mess every morning impacting their schedule, he said. “What happens is that all these kitchen waste gets dumped into Perungudi,” he said. When contacted, the manager for the apartment complex said garbage collectors were responsible for dumping waste gathered from elsewhere. He also said there was “no space” to build compost.

Residents are averse to segregating garbage as many of them consider it a job of the garbage collectors, said a conservancy inspector. The corporation is also to blame for not making available quality dump bins. A quick inspection in Adyar area made it clear that many of the green dumpsters were broken or in a bad condition but, more importantly, there just aren’t enough of them.“Everyone wants a dump bin but no one wants it anywhere near their house or even the compound wall. So, you tell me what to do?” said another conservancy inspector.

A zonal official raised a pertinent point about an issue that strict enforcement of source segregation could bring about. “The work hours of garbage collectors will increase but their pay will not. If public do not segregate and if we are to produce performance report to the higher ups, then we put pressure on collectors to segregate as much as they can after collecting at homes. Of course, that takes more time and there is a possibility that employee unions would object to it,” said an official.But if this project gets co-ordination from all stakeholders, it will go miles ahead in making Chennai clean, the official said.