A proposal to >use plastic waste to lay roads across the State was among the ideas discussed in a brainstorming session held in the city on Friday.
Innovative methods of segregation and recycling of garbage was the subject of discussion at a workshop on ‘Waste to wealth — entrepreneurial opportunities’ held at the Madurai District Tiny and Small Scale Industries Association (MADITTSSIA) auditorium here on Friday.
Mayor V.V. Rajan Chellappa said the municipal corporation was planning to generate power from waste. The government was ready to support initiatives that would put plastic waste to good use, he said and added that it had been planned to use plastic-bitumen mixture for laying 1,500 km of roads in the State.
Collector Anshul Mishra said that since the amount of waste being generated from the city was rising, efficient waste management was the need of the hour as most garbage dumps were overflowing.
“Over 600 tonnes of waste generated in the city gets segregated every day into bio-degradable and recyclable waste. The rest is used for landfills,” he said, adding garbage collection was the most challenging of the waste management exercise.
Minister for Cooperation ‘Sellur’ K.Raju, Minister for Environment M.C.Sampath, Minister for Rural Industries P.Mohan and MADITTSSIA president V.S.Manimaran spoke.
The day-long workshop had sessions on use of environment-friendly substitutes for natural resources and value-added products that could be made from discarded materials.
The workshop was jointly organised by the Entrepreneurship Development Institute, Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board, MADITSSIA, and Centre for Entrepreneurship Development (CED), Madurai.
