The Times of India 14.12.2019
Chennai Corporation launches website to help buy, sell waste
CHENNAI: Said to be the country’s first waste exchange platform, Greater Chennai Corporation on Friday launched www.madraswasteexchange.com that will help connect buyers and sellers of different kind of waste.
Corporation
commissioner G Prakash on Friday inaugurated the website which will be
run on a pilot basis for the first three months. Based on the response
from public and waste recyclers, more features will be added to the
website, officials said.
Through the website, members of the public
too can buy recycled products from the corporation. An android app with
the same name will also be up and running soon, officials said. The
concept will also help the civic body fulfil its long-term goal of
achieving zero waste by adopting the concept of a circular economy in
waste management.
The civic body generates about 5220tonnes of waste
a day. Of this, about 50% is wet waste, half of which is recycled as
manure by various methods adopted by city corporation. The civic body is
already providing doorstep delivery of manure and has also set up
stalls in a mall too.
Efforts are on to set up three bio-incinerator
plants on a public private partnership model to reduce the amount of
waste going to the landfills.
“About 400tonnes of dry waste
including tender coconut shells and garden waste that are collected
every day will be sold to enterprises making activated charcoal, biofuel
etc,” a corporation official said. The civic body also runs 64 resource
recovery centres and 110 material recovery facilities in which the
segregated waste collected from households are sent for recycling.
“The
waste exchange website too is a step towards reducing the amount of
waste that goes to the landfill. Our aim is to recover the landfills,”
the official added.
While for now, only municipal solid waste will
be handled through the platform, based on the response, the activity
will be scaled up to include other waste like e-waste, construction and
demolition waste, officials said adding it will be expanded to other
smart cities in the state too.
