The Coimbatore Corporation is impressed with the way the Warrangal Municipality had gone about implementing the solid waste management programme, said Mayor S.M. Velusamy and Commissioner G. Latha at a meeting held in the city on Tuesday.
The Residents Awareness Association of Coimbatore (RAAC) and a few civic organisations had arranged for the meeting.
The city had lessons to learn from the practise there. It also needed to know the changes required in law for the successful implementation of the programme — for, the Municipality in Andhra Pradesh had put in place a system where the wealth generated by segregated and selling the waste was shared among the conservancy workers.
Proceeds
Ms. Latha said that for distribution of the proceeds from sale of waste, the Coimbatore Corporation required laws, for which it would have to seek the help of the State Government.
But the civic body was very much interested in adopting the model because there were issues in solid waste management in the city.
Explaining the features of the waste management system in Warrangal, M. Muthu Kumar of Clean Cities Championship, an NGO, said that the organisation with support from the Municipal officials and the Andhra Pradesh Government took into confidence the conservancy workers, sought their feed back and then trained them on waste collection and management.
Penalty
Through the workers it informed the residents that they would have to segregate the waste or else pay penalty.
It also devised an incentive system wherein for efficient waste collection the households and conservancy workers were rewarded.
The workers then segregated the wastes, took out paper, plastics and other wastes that could be recycled.
They sold the same and the money they made was pooled in and used for their common good.
Mr. Velusamy said that the Corporation with support from ICLEI, an NGO, was engaged in the process of introducing door-to-door collection in Ward 23.
It would extend the same to other wards as part of the Shunya or Zero Waste Management project.
