Suburb shows way to hygiene, TACKLES ITS OWN WASTE
Daniel George
Chitlapakkam Has Developed A Successful Model Of Waste Segregation And Treatment Within The Town
This 4,047sqm compound in this small satellite town on the outskirts of Chennai gives no sign of what happens inside. But within the walls, Chitlapakkam town panchayat has been successfully running a waste treatment plant, where segregated garbage is converted into manure. Passersby have nothing to complain about. Life goes on; there is no foul smell, no flies buzzing around or eagles hovering for scraps of food.
This suburb, with a population of 50,000 people who live in 13,000 houses, is showing the way to Corporation of Chennai, which has been struggling to segregate garbage at source. R Chandra Kumar, executive officer of Chitlapakkam town panchayat, said residents have been told to cooperate with sanitary workers in segregating 10 tonnes of garbage every day .
This successful model has not been an overnight development: for over two decades, garbage generated in the town was disposed in a dumping yard. Then the town authorities decided to tackle the mounting problem and commissioned the project in June last year. The plant, built at a cost of `58.2 lakh, the fund for which comes from the general fund of the town panchayat, was finally launched this June. Local authorities have also awarded a `14-lakh contract to a private company to segregate the “historical garbage“ at the erstwhile local dumping yard Work on cleaning the yard has begun and is expected to be completed within two months, said panchayat officials. Vermicompost produced at the waste treatment plant, which is located just behind the town panchayat office, is sold for `20 per kg and the biocompost for `3 per kg. “We know that when agro waste rots, it converts into manure. For generations farmers have been following this technique. So why should let this waste go into waste?“ asked a panchayat official. The non-biodegradable waste like paper, leaves, wood, metals and other related products are sold to scrap dealers for recycling. They also use a shredder and crushing machines at the compost yard. Chitlapakkam residents have welcomed the move and are happy to contribute to conserving their environment and keeping their town clean. “This is good news for us.The panchayat should continue their good work. After all the residents will benefit from cleaner living spaces,“ said Venkatesh Babu, a resident of Kulakkarai Koil Street.
Syed Basha a resident of Raman Street said, “It is every resident's duty to help and cooperate in the segregation work. A concerted effort will make the municipality cleaner and we can be an example to other neighbourhoods.“
They have also raised the concern of Chitlapakkam Lake, where waste collected over many years has not been removed.
SCALE IT DOWN - Success model: Make it local, decentralise the process
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In a city that has failed in numerous at tempts to adopt source segregation and waste treatment method, the Chitlapa kkam experiment could well become a mod el that can be emulated by the civic body .
So far, the reasons for failure are numer ous: size of the city, uncooperative residents, red tape, lack of land, among others. And environmentalists say that the issue has to be addressed by scaling down the process: decentralising and localising waste management.
Chennai continues to fol low a crude process to manage solid waste: garbage collected from all over the city is dumped at landfills. “The main reason, seg regation at source is failing in big cities is due to the scale at which the cities are trying to implement the programme,“ says Dharmesh Shah, analyst at Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives. “Effective seg regation at source requires more personnel, which results in poor staff management and coordination.“
Recently , the corporation had to shelve its plan to collect segregated garbage from households in Alandur, Perungudi, Shollinganallur and Valasaravakkam owing to high costs. Their offer of half-gram gold coins and watches to those segregating and recycling waste also did not motivate residents. They distributed blue and green bins to Anna Nagar residents, but they reportedly opposed a proposal for a decentralised plant. “This doesn't work in Chennai because people lack faith in the government's faith in the government's capacity to dispose of waste. They ask why they should segregate garbage when it is going to be mixed and dumped,“ says Siddarth Hande of Kabadiwalla Connect.
But all is not lost in Chennai. Neighbourhoods such as in Harrington Road, OMR, RA Puram, Boat Club Road, and T Nagar practise segregation and recycling even though it's limited to some pockets.
