Thiruvalla Municipality and Mar Athanasios College For Advanced Studies Thiruvalla (MACFAST) has decided to jointly launch a ‘Clean City, Green City’ project in Thiruvalla.
Talking to The Hindu here on Saturday, Fr Abraham Mulamoottil, MACFAST principal, and Cherian Polachirackal, municipal chairman, said the proposed project aimed at the disposal of waste at its source.
A meeting of representatives of various socio-environmental organisations and experts in the field of waste management was held at MACFAST campus on Saturday to discuss the programme.
Addressing the meeting, the municipal chairman stressed the need for making the public properly aware of the grave need to keep their surroundings clean and hygienic by adopting their own methods of waste disposal.
Mr. Polachirackal said people should make it their responsibility to dispose the waste in their house, institution or business establishment in an eco-friendly manner.
What is needed is a change in the mindset of the people. Instead of blaming the civic body alone for the sorry state of waste management, people should make it their collective responsibility to tackle the pollution menace due to indiscriminate littering of waste at public places, he added.
Fr Mulamoottil said the idea behind the proposed ‘Clean City Green City Project’ is to ensure active co-operation and participation of the people in the waste management scheme.
It is also a fact that the municipality has been facing hurdles of various sorts in finding a waste dumping yard and setting up a solid disposal plant in its jurisdiction owing to public protest against the same. It is also a fact that the common man is not at all willing to take the civic body into confidence as it had failed miserably to ensure the proper functioning of various existing waste disposal scheme like the one attached to the municipal slaughter house at Thukalasserry, said Fr Mulamoottil.
Many experts at the meeting felt that disposal of waste at its source was best suited for a thickly populated place like Thiruvalla.
Mr. Polachirackal said the civic body would seek co-operation of various socio-environmental groups in Thiruvalla for the effective implementation of the project through public awareness campaigns.
MACFAST and municipality would jointly organise a three-day seminar and exhibition at the municipal stadium in Thiruvalla as part of the project.
Small and medium size waste disposal units developed by various non-governmental organisations and companies that suit the needs of homes, residential apartments and business establishments would be displayed at the exhibition, Mr. Polachirackal said.
K.R. Prathapachandra Varma, BJP district president, Dr. C. Balagopalan, Resident Dean of MACFAST Bio-campus and K.P. Philipose of Bodhana Social Service Society also spoke.
