The grouping of garbage bins by installing enclosures may have partly helped in covering up overflowing garbage from public eye, but it has resulted in nuisance of a different kind.
The enclosures are now being used as public convenience.
After complaints from residents and much criticism of overflowing garbage bins in most residential localities, the Chennai Corporation, in an effort to clean up the city, grouped the bins in enclosures using corrugated sheets.
And all of a sudden, the enclosures, 20 feet wide at the least, mushroomed on footpaths in various parts of the city, obstructing pedestrian movement.
With the vanishing of garbage bins in some localities, residents had to walk some distance to dump garbage in the enclosures. Some residents even began to discard garbage in plastic bags along roadsides.
R. Govindaraj, secretary, Exnora International, said the idea of grouping garbage bins was a failure. “There are no garbage bins inside the enclosure on Akbarabad 2nd Street in Kodambakkam, and the sheets have been removed by miscreants,” he said.
“The enclosures are now being used as public convenience in several places. Complaints have been given to the Corporation officials concerned, but no steps have been taken,” said Mr. Govindaraj. According to him, the civic body should have executed the grouping of garbage bins on a pilot basis in a few places and scaled up the model based on the success of the project.
“Instead of grouping the garbage bins in enclosures, placing more garbage bins on the streets could have solved the problem of overflowing garbage,” said a senior official of the Corporation.
