Coimbatore, in neighbouring Tamil Nadu, has a successful story for the City Corporation here to pick at least a few examples, as it is a municipal corporation that manages solid waste generated in 100 wards and has a bigger area and population than Thiruvananthapuram.

At the national seminar on solid waste management, G Latha, municipal commissioner of the Coimbatore municipal corporation, came up with the methods with which it has been managing the waste generated there. 

The waste collected from the households is brought to transfer stations and then carried away to the compost plants. There, organic waste and rejects get separated.

Using JnNURM funds, the Coimbatore corporation has set up modernised waste transfer stations at Peelamedu, Sathy Road and Ukkadam and beautified the abandoned dump yards at Ondipudur, Kavundampalayam and Vellalore. Sanitary landfilling is done very scientifically.

Even when tipping fee and quantity of waste generation is on the rise,  the civic body is trying new initiatives, including biomethanisation and roping in organisations, agencies and NGOs for strengthening the solid waste management. Even the waste-laden trucks are monitored using radio frequency identification (RFID) tags.

Special training is provided to sanitary workers for improving efficiency under a capacity-building project.

Due importance is also given to the management of hazardous and e-waste, construction waste and plastic waste.

In the municipal area that is divided into five, plastic waste management is fully managed in one particular division by entering into a tie-up with an organisation that collects it door-to-door and processes the waste by itself.

The civic body is planning to extend the facility to the other four divisions also.