The Greater Chennai Corporation has set a target of achieving 75% source segregation of waste in all zones.
Corporation Commissioner Gagandeep Singh Bedi has directed all conservancy workers, including those working for private contractors, to collect only segregated waste from households and take them for composting or to resource recovery centres.
The Commissioner has instructed the zonal officers to prepare a streetwise route chart for battery-operated vehicles with time and deposition in micro composting facilities, resource recovery centres, material recovery facilities or compactor bins. The zonal officers will allocate duty to the workers to distribute pamphlets on source segregation among households, the officials said.
On average, over 800 tonnes of garbage has been taken to composting every day in the last fortnight and more than ₹61 lakh has been apportioned among the workers for processing dry waste in resource recovery centres, the officials said.
Segregated wet waste should be deposited in green bins and dry waste in blue bins. The collected wet waste will go to bio CNG plants, windrow centres and micro composting centres. Dry waste will go to resource recovery centres, material recovery facilities, incinerator plants and baling machines.
“The animators, Swachh Bharat Mission supervisors and conservancy workers have been asked to jointly canvass for source segregation, which should be the talk of the city this fortnight,” said an official.
Propaganda song
The civic body has planned to come out with a new propaganda song for solid waste management to promote source segregation among residents and make the city cleaner. Each of the 15 zones have been directed to use 30 tonnes of manure generated from waste. The city has 21.21 lakh households and the civic workers will visit each household in the next fortnight to persuade the residents to support source segregation of waste.
In the last fortnight, the city recorded 68% source segregation with Kodambakkam topping the chart with 78% and Villivakkam finishing in the bottom with 58%. “We have introduced battery operated vehicles in Tondiarpet, Royapuram, Thiru Vi Ka Nagar, Ambattur and Anna Nagar. This is expected to improve segregation,” said an official.
Private conservancy operators have already introduced battery operated vehicles in other parts of the city. “We are thinking of collecting fine from residents who fail to segregate waste. Right now, we are persuading residents to segregate waste and handed it over to us. After a sufficient level of awareness is created, we will start collecting fine,” added Mr. Bedi.
