Burning leaves an alibi to burn plastic: Green activist

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: An engineer who returned to her home town here has put together a proposal for avoiding burning of leaves. Ann Andrews took such an initiative after fumes entered her home when her newborn was sleeping. Ann says that most people use burning of leaves as an excuse to burn plastic. While she was working as an adviser to Shashi Tharoor MP, she initiated a survey among city residents.  Though the sample size was small, it provided  interesting insights.

Some even told her that they were burning waste because Thiruvananthapuram Corporation had asked them to manage it at source. No one she met knew that there was a court order against burning waste. There were also those who thought that burning was beneficial as it kills bacteria and viruses in the atmosphere. A housewife burnt raw potato skins in the cowshed to keep mosquitoes away.  People don’t like piles of leaves even under trees as moist leaves offer shelter to snakes, centipedes and other unwanted guests, according to her survey.    

“I wanted to give people an alternative before telling them to stop burning. The corporation’s aerobic bins were too far away. Most people don’t know about them.  So it became apparent to me that the city needs a more distributed composting mechanism,” she says. Kitchen bins can only handle kitchen waste. Leaves would need a more efficient mechanism. She imported three ‘Aerobin’ composters from Australia, one of which was donated to the corporation so that they can experiment with it.

According to her, it comes in different sizes which can handle 200-600 kg of leaves and raw food waste. It comes in 200-litre, 400-litre and 600-litre sizes. She says, “The biggest advantage is that you need only one bin, compared to two composters needed in the case of primitive composting devices.”  Since the Australian company manufactures it in Tamil Nadu, it will be an added advantage, she says.