Piling of banana stems, mango leaves and other materials used for Ayudha Puja celebrations is a common sight in the city after the festival. This time, the corporation plans to clear it in two days.
Temporary shops selling banana stems, mango leaves, ash gourd, coconuts and sugarcane have come up along the roads in many areas in the city and also in the outskirts.
Traders leave the unsold stems and mango leaves along the road leading to piling of garbage. Also, ash gourds are broken on the road as part of the celebrations. Shopkeepers, commercial establishments and residents clean their premises for puja and dump the garbage in bins and on the roads.
About 250 tonnes of solid waste is generated in the 60 wards in the city everyday that were cleared by the conservancy workers. However, after the puja, over 100 tonnes of additional waste were dumped on the road which the workers had to remove. Since workers did not work on Thursday, clearing of garbage began on Friday and is expected to be completed by Saturday. Officials said that more than half of the banana stems and mango leaves that were brought for sale remained unsold and were dumped on the road by the traders. “They simply leave it along the road”, said an official.
Since the corporation is engaged in door-to-door collection of solid waste, and in the absence of bins, most of the waste was dumped along the roads in the city. “Removing the waste from the roads in residential areas is a great challenge”, said the official.
Corporation Commissioner M. Elangovan told The Hindu that a minimum of 100 tonnes of waste was generated across the city and workers were involved in clearing it from Friday.
