An appeal has been made to residents and merchants in Coonoor to reduce the amount of food that gets unnecessarily disposed of and sent to municipal waste treatment facilities.
Explaining the scope of the problem, P.J. Vasanthan, a trustee of ‘Clean Coonoor’, an NGO which helps the municipality run the waste treatment facility at Ottupattarai in Coonoor, said that around a third of all waste brought to the facility is food waste, which with proper planning and management, could easily have been consumed instead of being disposed of.
“We get three types of food waste – packed foods products like noodles and biscuits, food from households like sweets and savouries as well as fruits and vegetables,” said Mr. Vasanthan.
In the last 40 days, around three tonnes of food waste has accumulated at the dump yard, including unopened packets of biscuits, noodles, milk and curd, as well as food from households besides a tonne of fruits and vegetables.
Expiry date
“The packed foods have been thrown away as they have passed their sell-by date. Our appeal is to traders to keep tabs on the products they have stocked, and to at least give away the packed goods to people in need before the items reach the expiry date, so they don’t end up at the waste treatment facility,” said Mr. Vasanthan.
Over the last 40 days, a total of 35 tonnes of dry waste has been handled at the facility, with around 45% of the trash being “recoverable trash,” and 40% comprising mostly of paper and plastic, which can be baled and recycled.
