The Corporation on Sunday began the campaign to make source segregation of waste a habit for the residents of the city and simultaneously enter the Guinness Book of World Records for involving the highest number of people in such a venture.
Corporation Commissioner K. Vijayakarthikeyan said that the ‘Coimbatore Guinness Championship Campaign’ was a week-long programme in which the residents will have to segregate the domestic waste into three categories - recyclable, non-recyclable and hazardous.
Conservancy workers will collect the waste at their doorsteps. Volunteers will evaluate the effort at both ward and zonal levels of the civic body.
“Within a week, we hope to make segregation a habit. The target is to have two lakh people participate in the litter collection and segregation campaign on March 8. The current record, being held by a Japanese city, was around 1.4 lakh,” he added.
The Corporation was distributing cards to school students for making entries on litter segregation. Campaign organisers said that hundreds of conservancy workers in all the five zones covering 100 wards were being trained in waste segregation and collection. Cash prizes to the tune of Rs. 5 lakh would be given for best-performing conservancy workers.
The Commissioner interacted with workers who, he said, were happy with the recognition that this campaign entailed rather the monetary awards.
The Corporation, non-government organisations, education institutions and business firms conducted an awareness campaign for the past one week in the city on waste management.
