Chennaiites are becoming serious about waste. And it’s not just source segregation. Some residents are also setting up their own compost pits to deal with garbage.
Asha Muralidharan, along with a group of residents in MRC Nagar, has helped bring about a change to the leafy neighbourhood. Initially, her efforts to engage her neighbours in source segregation did not pan out. “We did not really get that much support, both from people as well as logistically,” she said.
But, the residents persisted and over time, with the help of conservancy firm Ramky Enviro Pvt. Ltd., which is on contract with the civic body, managed to implement an efficient system of source segregation. Today, around 3 tonnes of segregated waste is collected daily from the locality. Soon, the Corporation took notice and helped residents set up a compost pit.
Thirugnana Sambandam. director of Ramky Enviro Pvt. Ltd, says that waste generated in one’s house should be dealt with in the household “Almost 90 per cent of the waste that is sent to landfills can be avoided if residents source segregate as well as do composting,” he said.
Residents of Harrington Road are also in the forefront of such activities. A year ago, source segregation efforts started in the neighbourhood under the initiative of the Harrington Road Residents Association which works with Ramky as well. “More than 400 households source segregate their waste on Harrington Road. About 400 to 500 kilograms of waste is collected every day,” said a member of the association. Currently, all the waste collected from the area is sent to Corporation landfills.
According to Corporation sources, the ongoing efforts by resident associations are a good sign. “Land in the city is hard to come by for composting. For MRC Nagar, we were able to get unused PWD land to set up a compost pit, the only one of its kind in the city at present. But if more people start source segregating, recycling of dry waste can take place and the wet waste can be disposed of in the most scientific manner at landfills,” a senior Corporation official said.
A city-wide strategy to set up decentralised solid waste management, fashioned along the lines of MRC Nagar, is on the cards, the official said. “We are also currently working on setting up a compost pit in Pulianthope for the neighbourhood,” the official added.
Meanwhile, many residents do composting in their own houses. According to Meenakshi Sriram of Samriddhi Foundation, about 200 households in the city compost their household waste using the NGO’s tumblers. “A few terracotta pots can be stacked up and used as well, and sour curds can be activators,” she said.
Schools, firms pitch in
As awareness about waste management increases, more schools, colleges and restaurants have begun doing their bit through source segregation and recycling.
Many institutions rely on NGOs to help with waste management and education.
Arsha Vidya Mandir, a school in Guindy, has been educating its students through the Garbology project of the NGO WasteLess from Auroville. Through the project, the students are educated on the importance of waste management and their role in the process. “Since we started the project here around a year ago, the school has started segregating waste, selling their recyclables and sending their wet waste to an organic compost farm run by Dr. Lucas,” Ribu Vohra from WasteLess said.
Several schools and corporates have also been using the services of Paperman to sell their recyclable waste. “In the past two years, we have had around 1,900 schools, corporates and houses that have been giving us their dry waste,” Mathew Jose, founder, Paperman, said.
According to M.B. Nirmal, founder of Exnora International, while source segregation is commendable, something effective must also be done with the waste; else, there is not much use. “So far, many households and organisations have been source segregating but, since the collection by the Corporation does not match the segregation, many of them lose interest. It is important to come up with an effective waste system where the waste from one area is dealt with by the community itself,” he said. - Kavita Kishore
