Mayor K. Chandrika, on Sunday, said the Corporation would implement a few projects in the next few weeks to alleviate the garbage problem in the city. She was speaking during the inauguration of the Federation of Residents’ Associations mid-yearly meeting on Sunday.
It was decided during an expert committee meeting that a powder would be sprayed on garbage, after separating plastic, to remove stench, she said. The Corporation had ordered 5,000 kg of the powder, which was available with the Agriculture Department. The consignment would arrive on Monday.
For pipe composting
Kudumbasree workers would be employed again, she said, for pipe composting and to collect clean plastic waste. “A company from Perumbavoor would collect clean plastic and the Corporation is ready to transport the plastic waste,” said the Mayor, adding that workers would collect from households willing to pay Rs.50 a month.
“With the mobile incinerator to be commissioned from October 2, at least a portion of the waste problem can be dealt with,” she said.
Loss
Since the closure of the Vilappilsala garbage treatment plant in December, 2011, 50,000 tonnes of garbage had been buried in various places. Thus, an estimated Rs.50 lakh of manure that should have been generated by the plant was lost.
“This is just the loss agriculturally as the manure generated used to be given to Fertilisers and Chemicals Travancore Limited (FACT). If other affected businesses are accounted, the overall loss over the past seven months is almost Rs.1 crore,” she said.
The Mayor said that by reciting these figures she was not insinuating that the plant should be reopened. However, specific problems should have been looked into by the government instead of closing the plant abruptly, according to Ms. Chandrika.
“The villain called plastic crept into our lives very conveniently,” she said, noting how it had become a habit for the public to dump waste in plastic bags along road-sides and drains. Implications in the form of fevers were major concerns, she said.
The abandonment of the plan to transport waste to Parassala had worsened the situation.
Minister for Health V.S. Sivakumar, who inaugurated the programme, said the government would sanction funds to set up more waste treatment plants in the city.
