The Hindu 27.09.2009
Shift garbage dump: residents
Special Correspondent
| “Solution lies in implementation of solid waste management” |
— Photo:M.Moorthy 
Bad: Fire service men dousing fire in the garbage depot at Ariyamangalam Yard.
B.Srinivasalu: The dump should be shifted out of the city. Water contamination could occur.
TIRUCHI: Even as the Fire and Rescue Service and civic officials continue to fight yet another blaze at the garbage dump at Ariyamangalam, the Corporation has started a hunt to identify alternative site to deposit the 400 tonnes of solid waste generated every day in the city.
This is second major fire at the garbage dump in as many months and last month local residents even laid siege to the Corporation garbage trucks demanding that the dump be shifted. About 350 to 400 tonnes of garbage collected everyday is dumped at the yard spread over an area of 45 acres.
Though the dump, functional over the past few decades, was once an isolated area, several residential colonies have come up in the area over the past decade. Irate residents in and around the dump have long been complaining of severe air and ground water pollution, apart from the health hazard posed by the conditions of squalor. “A garbage dump cannot be located in a residential area,” says M.D.Saravanan, a resident of Balaji Nagar Extension.
“The dump is close to the highway and whenever there is a fire, road users are put to much inconvenience. Residents are faced with the prospect of water contamination in the ensuing rainy season,” says B.Srinivasulu, another resident.
Raghu G.Desai: The garbage should be segregated and disposed in a scientific manner.
M.D.Saravanan:The garbage dump should be located in a non-residential area.
The dump should be shifted out of the city. This apart, the Corporation should find a scientific method to dispose the wastes. Otherwise, the garbage will remain a health hazard to the residents, says Raghu G.Desai, a resident of Balaji Nagar.
Rising public indignation and pressure from elected representatives has put the Corporation under pressure, forcing it to explore alternative arrangements now. Corporation officials concede that they are in a bind – it would be virtually impossible to remove the garbage from the site. A bio-composting project launched last year has not proved to be a solution. Even a proposal to use the site for an integrated bus stand had to be dropped. Sources say that a couple of alternative sites have been identified to dump the city’s solid waste as there has been a demand for immediate stoppage of dumping at the Ariyamangalam site.
But a permanent solution, officials say, would lie in the implementation of a cluster-based solid waste management planned for Tiruchi and some of the neighbouring municipalities. A common solid waste processing facility is planned under the project, possibly in the Panchapur sewage disposal farm. But the project could take a few years to see the light of the day and whether the Corporation would be able to find a solution to the problem until such time remains to be seen.
