Every household should come forward to segregate waste at source, T.K. Majumdar, Director, Finance, at the Ministry of Urban Development, said here on Monday.
Addressing a gathering at the Coimbatore Corporation main office in Town Hall to launch segregated waste collection drive in all the 100 wards, he said that if households did not segregate waste at source, it would be difficult to do so anywhere else.
And, the attempt to segregate waste at the processing plant would be a costly affair. Therefore, households should come forward to segregate the waste into wet, degradable, and dry non-degradable waste and hand it over to the conservancy workers in such a fashion.
Corporation Commissioner K. Vijayakarthikeyan said that segregated waste collection drive launched on Monday to coincide with World Environment Day would not be a success unless the households came forward.
The Corporation had been continuously highlighting the need for segregated waste collection by launching various initiatives and engaged various sections of the society. It would continue to do so in the days to come. He asked his officers to ensure that the launch did not turn out to be a one-off affair, but was done 365 days a year.
Coimbatore South MLA Amman Arjunan wanted residents to realise the cost of dumping garbage in drains - they get clogged, turn localities unhygienic and bring in all sorts of problems. The residents therefore should segregate and properly dispose of waste, he said. Sanitary Officer Kamaraj administered a pledge asking the gathering to segregate waste.
World Environment Day
Meanwhile, to mark World Environment Day and the launch of segregated waste collection drive, as mandated by the Ministry of Urban Development, the Coimbatore Corporation had organised events across the city.
It had organised a segregation march in West Zone, opened a kiosk for people to take pledge to segregate waste at their houses or shops, distributed pamphlets to people, placed dedicated organic waste collection containers at a few places in the city, launched battery-operated kart to collect waste in segregated fashion in Ward 67 (Ramanathapuram) and launched a project to recycle used computers for use by its students.
The Corporation also launched the programme where apartments and gated communities would hand over waste in segregated fashion - they would hand over dry waste to the ‘No Dumping Team’ and only the wet waste to the conservancy workers.
In the evening, the civic body also met representatives of corporate companies to tap corporate social responsibility funds.
Sources said that the Corporation had sent a proposal to the State Government to buy more pushcarts, bins and vehicles to improve the waste collection and transportation efficiency.
The total cost worked out to ₹12 crore. It had also initiated the process of inviting bids for biomining the accumulated waste in Vellalore at ₹15 crore.
