At 4,800 tonnes a day, Chennai city accounts for a third of the garbage generated by all 664 urban areas in Tamil Nadu.
This is as per the 2013-14 annual review report submitted recently by the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB) to the Central Pollution Control Board.
And yet, by the TNPCB’s own admission, the amount of garbage processed (segregated, composted or incinerated) remains ‘nil’.
Chennai’s solid waste — everything from food waste to packaging and plastic — heads unsegregated, untreated and un-recycled to the Kodungaiyur and Perungudi dumping yards.
On the other hand, smaller cities such as Coimbatore, Dindigul, Erode, Thanjavur and Tirunelveli have in place infrastructure to compost or partially treat biodegradable waste.
The Chennai Corporation’s unscientific dumping yards, besides being a violation of several clauses of the Municipal Solid Wastes (Management and Handling) Rules (MSW), 2000, threaten to pollute groundwater and the air, and impact the health of those who live around the facilities, says Dharmesh Shah, a researcher with Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, an NGO.
The MSW Rules mandate that municipalities ensure the segregation of waste at source (at the household level), composting of biodegradable waste and recycling of dry waste in order to ‘minimise the burden on landfills’.
While the Corporation prepares to install 13 biomethanation plants, Mr. Shah believes civil society has a role to play.
“Bengaluru’s garbage crisis, for instance, was resolved in part by civil society agitation and participation. Ideally, we should ensure wet waste is processed locally, at the neighbourhood level,” he says.
