Tiruchi Corporation is unlikely to extend the “cash for plastic waste” project to other wards in the near future due to “operational difficulties”.
Aimed at encouraging the residents to segregate recyclable waste materials and make money out of it, the civic body launched the project in May on a pilot basis. It chose ward 27, represented by Mayor M. Anbazhagan, to implement the project and study its effectiveness of it. The Corporation roped in the services of a Tirupur-based waste management company to implement the project. It soon deputed its men and machinery to collect waste from the households in ward 27.
Under the initiative, the company provided a waste collection bag to every household in the ward. Each bag has a capacity to store 3kg of recyclable waste and the residents were asked to collect waste other than kitchen and food waste in the bag. They were asked to keep the used objects such as plastic bottles, cardboard boxes, metal, containers, and electrical and electronic devices in the bags. The employees of the company began collecting the waste once in 15 days. They were given ₹ 12 per kg of waste.
Though the initiative was appeared to have received well among the residents initially, the cash for plastic waste scheme is said to have lost its sheen due to various factors. Since the launch of the project, a section of sanitary workers and sanitary inspectors opposed it.
It is said that upon collection of waste from households, the sanitary workers had been selling the recyclable waste to various agencies. In order to clear the waste as early as possible from the city, the Corporation adopted a lenient approach towards the sanitary workers generating nominal income from the waste when it launched the collection of segregated waste from the households a few years ago. These factors had made it difficult for the Corporation to expand the cash for the plastic waste project to other wards in the city now.
When contacted the Mayor told The Hindu that some sanitary workers, who had been earning money by selling recyclable waste, had expressed reservations to the new initiative. The civic body had to study various aspects before extending it to other wards, he said.
