Thiruvananthapuram: People raise doubts on using kitchen bins

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: By the time the live kitchen bin trial at Palayam ended  on Friday, more than 600 people had visited the stall. The campaign which started on October 21 had managed to make many people curious about the bins, and more than hundred people took home a kitchen bin. Corporation officials say that most people who walked in were people who were yet to start using kitchen bins.

Only a handful of them who came in had issues with kitchen bins already set up at their homes. “A few had talked about flies swarming over the waste. As we prodded further we understood that they would collect waste in buckets, and put it into kitchen bins only once a day. While this helps save on the use of innoculum, the open buckets attract flies. They were advised to keep the bucket closed,” said an official.

Another reason why the bins would not work properly was when the users would add extra water. The additional moisture does not aid the decomposition process, the official said. The official said that they followed up on the ones who raised such issues after a couple of days, and these were solved. Every day, an event was held at the stall to attract people’s attention and encourage dialogues on source-level waste management.

On the final day Kodambakkam PO, a fusion band, performed. Minister Kadakampally Surendran opened the bins. Officials say that the real success of the campaign was in the fact that they could show it to the public that the bins caused no malodour. The corporation plans to repeat the campaign in other places, and the next spot is likely to be Sasthamangalam.