The Poolampady Town Panchayat has introduced a month-long bio-mining technique for converting solid waste into manure. Bio material such as coconut waste take a longer period to turn into compost but bio-mining hastens the process.
Plastic wastes form a good part of the garbage, further delaying the phenomenon of bio-degrading.
A team of health workers and volunteers separated the plastic waste material from the garbage. “There was about eight tonnes of garbage piled up at the yard and plastic weighing about one tonne was separated from it,” says Kumaran, Executive Officer of the town panchayat.
The town panchayat handles about 1.21 tonnes of garbage daily. With the mushroom growth of new residential colonies, the daily volume of garbage had been on the rise, with plastic wastes posing a challenge.
“Lack of space for stocking the garbage at the compost yard has been a major problem,” Mr. Kumaran pointed out. The separation of the plastic waste from the garbage has now ensured adequate space for handling the garbage here.
AwarenessAs a permanent measure to check the mixing of plastic waste into the garbage, the town panchayat had introduced a series of steps to separate the non-degradable and bio-degradable waste at source itself. Sanitary workers use separate bins – white and green at commercial complexes meant for plastic waste and bio-degradable garbage respectively, he said.
Kitchen gardenAn awareness programme on setting up kitchen gardens at the backyard has been launched in the town. Waste vegetables turn into bio-manure in course of time. “People are being motivated to dig a pit at the backyard for converting the vegetables into manure,” he said.