Despite its avowed objective of becoming 100% garbage bin-free city after introducing door-to-door collections and source segregation of waste, the Tiruchi Corporation has failed to put in place a foolproof garbage collection mechanism as residents in many areas have aired their complaints on the system.
The Tiruchi City Corporation had, in May, declared that nearly 95% of the 1,172 large bins had been removed to make it mandatory for residents to hand over domestic waste directly to sanitary workers arriving with pushcarts or light commercial vehicles of the Corporation.
The civic body had deployed 175 vehicles across the four zones in the city to collect solid waste and transport the same to one of the 30-odd micro-composting centres.
However, residents, especially those living in apartment complexes allege that there is a lack of accountability among sanitary workers and the garbage collection is irregular because of it.
“The garbage collection vehicle comes to our street but we are unaware of the time it comes. We cannot leave the garbage at the entrance of our apartment as dogs and cattle ravage it. We have no means to dispose of the waste generated at home,” said M. Priya, a resident of Thillai Nagar.
Most apartment complexes in the city do not have a garbage collection point to facilitate the process, says Ms. Priya.
“I have seen residential societies in Chennai and Bengaluru where they have a designated area with labelled garbage bins for all residents to dump their garbage. When the collection vehicles come, the maintenance staff of the apartment take the large bins and hand over its contents to the sanitary workers,” she said.
Residents say that there is also an irregularity in the timing of the garbage collection trucks.
Collection vehicles come only once in two days and not on the weekends, says S. Bharathi, a resident of Puthur.
“Most of the time the truck misses our street or comes only in the afternoon at around 3 p.m. Nobody is at home to hand over the waste at that time,” she says. Residents also fret that garbage is being dumped on street corners regularly.
“The corporation cleans up the area but the next morning, one can see that the garbage dump has returned. The nearby eateries and also the residents throw their garbage where the old garbage bins used to be. They want their houses to be clean but ours are dirty because of them,” she added.
City Corporation Commissioner S. Sivasubramanian says that garbage collection work will soon be streamlined.
“We are looking to appoint temporary workers for waste collection and to work at the micro-composting yards. We will ensure that the city is 100 per cent garbage bin-free and that all the waste is being disposed of in a systematic manner," he said.
