The spacious Government Primary School at Panapakkam, a farming village off the Chennai-Bengaluru National Highway near Ranipet, was turned into a temporary dump by the district administration to store 20 metric tonnes of recyclable plastic waste since May-end.
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On Monday when schools reopened, parents were shocked to see more than 300 large bags of plastic waste dumped near the noon meal centre of the school when they came to drop their children . “The waste should have been relocated before the school reopened,” said Panapakkam town panchayat president Kavitha Srinivasan.
On Tuesday, Ranipet Collector D. Bhasakara Pandian flagged off six tonnes of plastic waste from the school to cement factories in Ariyalur district. The rest of the waste was relocated from the campus.
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Revenue officials said the lot kept in the school was part of 187 metric tonnes of waste collected during the three-hour campaign organised by the district administration on May 27. Around 20,000 volunteers were roped in to make Ranipet free of single-use plastics. The Collector led the drive that covered 2,500 sq. km.
With the schools on the summer vacation, the waste was stored mostly at school campuses at six places, including Sholinghur, Ranipet, Arakkonam, Kalavai and Nemili. The waste would be safe in the schools from miscreants who would otherwise set it ablaze.
However, the district administration was confronted with a huge cost towards transport of the waste to the Ariyalur cement factories. On an average, it costs ₹20,000 to transport each load of around six metric tonnes. The waste will be used with coal as fuel. Due to the high transport cost, officials are planning to use the waste for road-laying in the district. “We will hold a meeting with the Department of Highways,” said Mr. Bhaskara Pandian.