The Harrington Road Residents Welfare Association (HRRWA) has undertaken various green initiatives and to witness its latest, one had to take a short walk to the Loyola College burial ground, where the Association has set up a compost yard.
A few years ago, HRRWA launched a campaign to segregate garbage at source. As part of this initiative, members of the Association connected with residents, commercial establishments and hospitals.
“While the campaign saw 70 percent of the targeted group practise waste segregation, there was no sense of what do with the different types of waste, after segregation. We especially had no skills in composting. This crucial part of waste management has just begun,” says a member of HRRW.
The compost yard with a capacity of 1.2 tonnes was set up a week ago. The Chennai Corporation-appointed Ramky collects segregated waste from every household and establishment. The wet waste is then taken to this compost facility, where the segregated waste is converted to vermicompost by another agency, Earth Recyclers. “In one week, we had 100 kilos of wet waste in every 300 kilos of segregated waste,” says this member.
“We have started with larger establishments such as Pazhamudir, which have a good quality segregated waste,” the member adds.
According to HRRWA, efforts are on to educate the Ramky staff on how to collect the segregated waste. “Segregation is only 40 percent of the challenge. The rest of the problem involves collection of the segregated waste,” says the member. “Generally, they collect waste in any form as it generates remuneration for them. They segregate whatever they can. Now, we are training them to not collect anything other than segregated waste.”
One of the volunteers of the Association bought a separate vehicle to help the Ramky staff collect the wet waste and transport it to the facility.
At the compost facility, Ramky engages in a secondary segregation of the biodegradable waste, “to remove a few items that should not go into the compost yard.”
