The Hindu 10.02.2010

House panel visits garbage plant

Special Correspondent

Thiruvananthapuram: The city Corporation is preparing to launch a campaign to sensitise the public about the need for segregation of garbage at source. Corporation Health Officer D. Sreekumar told a Legislative Committee on Local Fund and Accounts that the campaign would be launched next month.

Committee members, including chairman N. Anirudhan and members K.K. Divakaran, P.T.A. Rahim, M.J. Jacob and V. Sivankutty, were on a visit to the Corporation’s garbage treatment plant at Vilappilsala in the suburbs on Tuesday to assess its functioning, following a reference made in the audit report on a Rs.40 lakh grant-in-aid availed of by the former operators of the plant.

Highlighting the capacity constraints of the plant, Dr. Sreekumar said the overloading of garbage bays was responsible for the stench. He said once the airtight garbage trucks arrived, smell during transportation of the garbage from the city to Vilappilsala would be avoided. He said the Corporation had applied for assistance from the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) to set up a Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF) plant on the premises. The plant, he explained, would make fuel bricks out of slow composting materials like palm fronds. The bricks would be used as fuel in cement plants.

The committee proposed the application of biological inoculums at garbage collection points to suppress the smell. Vilappil gram panchayat member B. Radhakrishnan who was present, said the leachate from the garbage plant was polluting the water sources in the neighbourhood even after the modernisation works taken up by the Corporation after the exit of the Poabs Group, the former operators. He said the plant was a health hazard to the residents in the Vilappil panchayat.

Mayor C. Jayan Babu said the Corporation was focussing on a decentralised system of solid waste management to minimise the quantum of garbage being transported to the plant. He said an amount of Rs.40 crore had been spent on modernising the compost plant at Vilappil. A leachate treatment unit would become operational in six months, he said.

The Hindu 06.02.2010

Corporation tightens waste disposal rules

Staff Reporter

Kozhikode: The City Corporation Council has decided to strictly enforce the Solid Waste (Management and Handling) Rules 2000 in the city from April 1. A decision to this effect was taken at the council meeting here on Friday. Mayor M. Bhaskaran chaired the session.

Those littering public places will be fined between Rs.100 and Rs.25,000 and imprisoned up to six months. The punishment will depend on the gravity of the offence. Now the fine imposed for littering at public places is fixed at Rs.250.

The secretary of the Corporation will decide on the penalty.

Appeals against the penalties can be submitted before the chairman on Standing Committee on Health and Education.

Awareness campaign

Kudumbasree volunteers engaged in the door-to-door collection of waste materials will stop collecting plastic carry bags from April 1.

Heath inspectors will undertake a campaign to discourage residents from using plastic bags.

The Health Department will also distribute leaflets regarding the new rules, the Mayor said.

Rules for abattoirs

The Mayor also said that chicken stalls and slaughterhouses needed to install biogas plants and incinerators for the safe disposal of waste from their shops.

A new Rs.2.25-lakh bio-gas plant set up by the corporation would be inaugurated at Vellimadukunnu on February 8, he said.

Taking part in the deliberations, Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) member P.T. Rajan said that the Corporation should take stringent actions against hotels and hospitals dumping waste in the Canoly canal. The existing ban on plastic carry bags below the thickness of 30 microns was not effectively enforced, he said.

For chicken stalls

Congress councillor P.K. Mamukoya said that hotels functioning at rented buildings would find it difficult to install biogas plants.

The corporation would also provide facility at a common place to set up chicken stalls, he said.

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) member K.V. Venugopalan also suggested that the civic body scout for a land to safely dispose carcass of animals. The Mayor said that the suggestion would be considered.

Deputy Mayor P.T. Abdul Latheef said that the Corporation would take action against organisers who do not remove billboards after the event was over.

These billboards caused traffic snarls and was a threat to pedestrians and motorists, he said.