Push carts get a makeover in Coimbatore

Two conservancy workers, who will be attached to a push cart each, will collect the waste from the residents. The residents will have to handover dry and wet wastes separately to the workers.

The new push carts introduced in Ward 44 of Coimbatore Corporation. Photo: M. Periasamy

Coimbatore Corporation has planned to improve the waste collection in all the 100 Wards based on the success it had had in Ward 44.

According to Corporation Commissioner G. Latha, the civic body with help from a team from Warrangal, Telangana, experimented on a new waste collection system by redesigning push carts, collecting unmixed waste and educating conservancy workers and also residents.

The new push carts will have four plastic bins for wet, degradable waste and six to eight bags for collecting a variety of dry waste. Two conservancy workers, who will be attached to a push cart each, will collect the waste from the residents. The residents will have to handover dry and wet wastes separately to the workers.

The workers, in turn, will dump the wet waste in the bins and then segregate and categorise the dry waste to dump them accordingly in the bags. This segregation of waste at the residents’ door steps helps the workers collect waste at go one ago — meaning they need not empty the bins to return for collecting waste, says Suresh Bhandari, a member of the team from Warrangal.

In the past few days, they worked with the conservancy workers in preparing route map, transport plan and monitoring plan. They also gave registers to workers to mark the households that did not mix wet and dry waste and those that did for follow-up action. Based on the success achieved in a part of the Ward 44, the Warrangal team and the Corporation officials will scale up the model to the entire city.

Ms. Latha says that the system will ensure that waste reached the Vellalore dump yard in a segregated fashion. And, the workers made money by segregating and selling plastic waste to recyclers. The Corporation will also stand to gain by minimising the number of lorry trips to the Vellalore dump yard.

Fine

Coimbatore Corporation, as part of its plan to improve waste collection, has planned to slap fine on those who litter waste. Commissioner G. Latha says that persons in charge of waste management will fine those who litter waste by issuing them challans with hand-held machines and collecting the fine. The Corporation will start with the fine collection system in Ward 23 (R.S. Puram) and slowly extend it to all the 100 Wards. It will begin with Ward 23 because it has done away with bins there. Once the new waste management system is extended to all the wards, it will also extend the fine collection system.