The Hindu 20.02.2010
Concern over dumping of waste
Radhakrishnan Kuttoor
| Thiruvalla municipal corporation yet to identify land for the purpose |
Sensitivity needed: Liquid waste being drained from a tanker lorry into a wetland in the Thiruvalla town limits on Friday.
PATHANAMTHITTA: Dumping of waste, including toilet waste, brought in tanker lorries on the Mazhuvangad wetlands along Chairmans Road in Thiruvalla is posing a health hazard.
Waste from hotels, markets, unauthorised slaughter houses, piggeries, chicken corners, markets and bio-medical waste from hospitals are dumped here without any concern for the law.
The civic body itself dumps waste on the wetlands as it has failed to identify a dumping yard away from the thickly populated town.
Civic authorities used to shift the waste dumped at sites near the municipal stadium to the wetlands adjoining the children’s park and a plot near Pushpagiri Medical College (PMC) following protests from the local people.
A senior citizen staying near the PMC told The Hindu that the civic body lacked political will and social responsibility in tackling the menace.
A proposal of the Mar Athanasios College for Advanced Studies Thiruvalla (MACFAST) and the Bodhana Social Service Society for implementing a decentralised waste disposal mechanism in the municipal limits appears to have been put on the backburner by the authorities, another resident said. The problem has become so grave that the wells in the vicinity are polluted with seepage from the polluted wetlands, he added.
Thomas P.Thomas, botanist, said many freshwater fish species had become extinct and the remaining fish varieties too were facing the threat of extinction due to the dumping of chemical waste on the wetlands.
Certain portions of the Kottathode and Mullely canals that flow through the Mazhuvanga Chira have been filled by private parties, blocking the natural flood escape routes.
Moreover, the dumping of waste has been posing serious health and pollution problems to the patients at the PMC, students and staff at nearby Titus-II Teachers College and the local people.
