Plastic waste to be collected daily

To be shredded at Muttathara unit and upcoming one at Peroorkada

September 12, 2017 01:10 am | Updated October 06, 2017 02:54 pm IST -

The City Corporation will soon start daily collection of plastic waste through various collection points in the city. Daily collection of plastic waste from the city has not been happening for quite some time due to various issues. The local body’s Resource Recovery Centres and the aerobic bin centres will serve as collection points for plastic waste.

Currently, the only chance for city residents to hand over plastic waste is through the periodic collection drives organised by the Corporation. In a few wards, Kudumbasree workers are still collecting plastic waste on a weekly basis. But even the Corporation authorities admit that this collected waste, at times, ends up in waste dumps.

Now, the cleaned plastic collected at the collection points will be taken to the Corporation’s new plastic shredding unit in Muttathara. Another shredding unit is getting ready at Peroorkada. The shredded plastic will be handed over to the Clean Kerala company.

“As per the earlier agreement, the Clean Kerala company used to pay us ₹18 per kg of shredded plastic. We are not sure if there would be any change in the rates now with the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST),” says a Corporation official.

The implementation of GST had come us a huge blow to the recycling industry. The GST rate on old plastics and bottles have been fixed at 18% and that for PET plastic at 12%. This has led to a fall in the price of these materials in the recycling market.

The Corporation had last year banned the use of plastic carrybags and pushed for alternatives like paper bags. Still, the mounting plastic waste has continued to be a problem for it.

It was in October 2014 that the State government launched its plastic collection programme, giving Clean Kerala the responsibility to transport the waste collected from various wards to the processing centre in Palakkad. But plastic collection from the city has hit roadblocks several times.

First, it was about there being insufficient amount of plastic to make it viable to transport the waste to such a distance. The Corporation considered hiring vehicle on its own and transporting the waste to Palakkad, but this was found unviable. There were also issues over the cleanliness of the plastic that was handed over to the company.

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