The Hindu        15.11.2011

Corporation for Collector’s help

Staff Reporter

SOLUTION IN SIGHT: Plastic waste strewn on a vacant land near Tamil Nadu
Housing Board quarters at Anbu Nagar in Tirunelveli. — Photo: A.
Shaikmohideen

The Corporation, with the cooperation of the district
administration, has proposed to draw a comprehensive plan to deal with
the non-degradable and non-recyclable plastic waste being generated
within the limits of the urban civic body and impose a ban on the use of
these synthetic material posing serious threat to the environment.

Since the Corporation has to remove everyday 160 tonnes of garbage,
including considerable quantity of non-degradable and non-recyclable
plastic waste, it signed an agreement with India Cements Limited (ICL)
on the outskirts of the city, which came forward to use a portion of
this harmful waste as supplementary fuel along with the regular fuel of
coal and made some modifications in the machinery on an outlay of Rs. 1
crore so as to accommodate the waste plastic also as fuel.

However, some “practical difficulties” that cropped up midway forced
the ICL administration to stop taking the plastic waste from the
Corporation, leaving the civic body in a piquant situation.

Meanwhile, people living around the Ramaiyanpatti garbage dumping yard
approached the Madurai Bench of Madras High Court against the prolonged
dumping of the refuse, including non-degradable and non-recyclable
plastic waste, near their houses.

To put an end to
all problems the Corporation is facing from the dumping of garbage at
Ramaiyanpatti, it has been decided to award the contract to a
Madurai-based company for converting the recyclable garbage into bio
manure and green fuel.

Since the urban civic body is
yet to identify a strategy to mitigate the problems it is facing from
the non-degradable and non-recyclable plastic waste, it has been decided
to seek the help of the district administration, which alone can impose
ban on the manufacture, sale and use of this artificial material being
widely used in the packaging industry.

Announcing
this decision in the Corporation council meeting held on Monday, Mayor
Vijila Sathyanand said: “We’ve decided to seek the cooperation of the
district administration to deal with the plastic waste, which is a
serious threat to the life of the people living within the corporation.”

Kanyakumari model

Corporation sources clarified that while the Collector would be urged
to impose the ban on manufacture, sale and use of non-recyclable plastic
products as it was successfully done in neighbouring Kanyakumari
district, the existing quantity of plastic waste could be used in the
road laying projects with the guidance of a Madurai-based professor.