The Melasokkanathapuram town panchayat has not just stopped with successful implementation of solid waste management alone. It has set up a model roof garden using waste materials and utilising organic manure generated through solid waste management on its premises to enlighten public and promote production of chemical free vegetables.
A team of town panchayat workers were also highly innovative in setting up the model garden. They installed PVC pipes with several holes on all sides in the middle of the unused barrel. Soil, coir pith and vermi composts were filled around the pipe inside the barrel. The pipe was filled with vegetable wastes.
Seeds were sown around the pipe in the barrel. The plants will absorb energy from the waste materials. Organic materials in vegetable wastes too seeped into the soil through the holes and enriched the soil continuously, the workers explained.
Similarly, a long PVC pipe with holes was filled with coir pith and soil and seeds sown through holes. In a single pipe, we can grow several plants. On an average, a family can harvest 2 kg of vegetables periodically.
These systems will occupy only very small space. It also helps dispose vegetable wastes safely. While inspecting the garden developed by the town panchayat, Collector N. Venkatachalam said that the town panchayat has been motivating the public to visit the garden and get hands-on experience. More over, people need not spend much to set up the garden.
They could use only used fertilizer bags and waste containers to raise plants and dry wood to erect pandhals. Using organic wastes generated within the house and wastewater discharged from kitchen would suffice to harvest chemical residue-free vegetables. Above all, it would provide an excellent green cover to the house, he added.
Assistant Director for Town panchayats Sethu Raman said that only organic manure was used to raise vegetable plants in the garden. “We will motivate people to develop such gardens.”
