The bags containing waste paper and plastics that the ITC has collected from the city’s residents are worth about Rs. 40 lakh. The company collected the waste, as part of its Wealth Out of Waste (WOW) project, in a bid to recycle them.
But that has not happened. The bags are found dumped at the Coimbatore Corporation’s High Level Reservoir compound on Bharathi Park Road.
It has been six months since the bags are here, says M. Chandramani, a resident of Bharathi Park area. Her house is opposite the rear entrance to the Park. In the past six months, rats have multiplied and so have mosquitoes. And during rains the stench is unbearable.
She says there is also the danger of waste catching fire as electric lines run in close proximity, a transformer is there in the vicinity and Corporation drivers smoke near the waste.
The dumped waste is next to the Bharathi Park, which sees a number of young and old use the facilities both in the mornings and evenings. They all get affected.
Unethical
Keeping in mind their welfare, Ms. Chandramani wrote to ITC’s WOW representative Feroz Munshi complaining that it was unethical and unfair to store such a huge quantity of waste next to a park, in the midst of a residential area.
In return Mr. Munshi had said that the ITC was not using the place as a dump yard, it would soon clean the area and also added that the waste did not give out foul odour. In another communication he promised that he would soon shift the waste.
The area representative, Ward 22 Councillor V. Annammal, says that she had raised the issue in the West Zone meeting in May. The officials had then told her that the company would clear the waste in two months.
The Hindu’s efforts to reach Mr. Munshi failed.
