Coimbatore Corporation will soon expand the segregated collection of waste to around 50 wards – or 50 per cent of the area of the city.
Commissioner K. Vijayakarthikeyan said that the civic body was doing the ground work by talking to non-governmental organisations, civil society activists and entrepreneurs who were into waste management.
This could happen very soon, he added.
At present, the Corporation continues the zero waste ‘Shunya’ effort in Ward 23 (a part of R.S. Puram), which began more than two years ago with support from NGOs like ICLEI and international funding agencies. It then attempted extending the concept to a few more wards. In Ward 90 and 92 (a part of Kovaipudur), the Corporation with support from ‘No Dumping’ team was engaged in segregated collection of waste. The people behind the initiative would buy dry, recyclable waste from conservancy workers for a price, segregate and thereafter sell those to traders.
Aside from this, members of the civil society were also engaged in carrying out segregated collection of waste from gated communities and apartments.
A.G. Padmanabhan, one of the persons behind ‘No Dumping’ said that in the past year, the team had managed to reach out to hundreds of household, collect 1,357 metric tonnes recyclable waste and engage conservancy workers and students.
Corporation officials said that the objective was to bring down the quantity of waste reaching the Vellalore yard and recycle as much waste as possible. In the process, the Corporation would also save on fuel used in vehicles used for transporting waste to Vellalore.
