Chennai: Corporation
officials have been knocking on apartment doors across the city to make
people aware of source segregation, urging them to practise it and
carrying out demonstrations. On Monday, civic officials campaigned in
more than 400 homes in Ambattur, asking residents to segregate wet waste
from dry waste.

This is part of the ongoing efforts of the Greater Chennai Corporation
to implement the mandate of the revised solid waste management rules
released by the environment ministry in 2016 and the Swachh Bharat
Mission.

TOI had first reported the initiative in March which had resulted in
3% of the total waste in the city being recycled. “It’s important for us
to rope in students for this initiative, so we are campaigning in
schools and colleges apart from spreading awareness in slums and gated
communities,” said a senior health official of the corporation.

“After we cover our drive across the entire city, top officials may
consider how to make this mandatory and maybe even impose penalties,”
the official added.

On an average, more than 5000 metric tonnes of garbage is dumped every
day in the landfills in Kodungaiyur and Perungudi. To reduce this load
and eventually close these toxic dumping grounds, composting pits and
biogas plants have come up across the city in the corporation’s vacant
lands, burial grounds and near Amma Canteens to contain garbage within
neighbourhoods that are generating it and not let waste go to the
landfills.