Uncovered vehicles transporting solid waste are a common sight in Kochi even as norms for collecting and disposing waste are continuously being flouted in many parts of the city.
Despite Corporation authorities giving an assurance in December last year that 40 fully automated pickup vehicles for collecting waste would ply in the city by March, the waste management system still remains the same.
T. K. Ashraf, Chairman of the Health Standing Committee, had then pointed out that automated vehicles would ensure the waste is handled in a hygienic manner. He had also stated that open tenders for the purchase of vehicles would be floated by December.The Corporation has violated the central guideline that vehicles used for transportation of waste should be properly covered. The rules prescribe that waste should not be visible to public, nor exposed to open environment to prevent their scattering.
As per the guidelines the . vehicles should be so designed in such a way that multiple handling of waste, prior to final disposal, is avoided.
Open trucks are used daily for collecting solid waste from areas coming under the corporation limit. Only a plastic sheet is used to cover the refuse transported to the now defunct solid waste management facility in Brahmapuram. Garbage spills on to the roads adding to the woes experienced by Kochiites. Shop owners near the North Railway station, where an open truck is used, pointed out that the stench emanating from the waste becomes unbearable by the time it’s loaded manually into the trucks by around 10 a.m. daily. Commuters who get down at the Vyttila junction said that a sizeable portion of the waste disposed near the bus shelter remains there, as manual loading failed to remove the entire garbage piled up in the area.
