Did you know that the empty pet bottles that you throw away come back to you in the form of clothes? That the aluminium foils and Chinese cloth bags that you get from the grocery shops these days are actually plastic?

For those who think waste management is all about packing off their non-biodegradable waste in a truck, a visit to the material recovery facility and plastic recycling plant run by Green Worms at West Hill in the city will be an eye-opener.

Green Worms, an organisation that works in the waste management sector in Kozhikode, started the facility just five months ago as the next step in their mission for a clean State. Founded by social entrepreneur Jabir Karat, Green Worms has been focussing on waste-free events for a few years, at the same time setting up recycling facility in some parts of the district.

At present, Green Worms runs two material recovery facilities near the West Hill railway station where waste materials undergo a long process before they are either recycled or shipped off to recycling facilities in other parts of the country. Around 30 people work in the units, while there are teams of around five employees each in nine hospitals in the city to collect and segregate the non-biodegradable medical waste.

Plastic bags

The conventional plastic bags first go through a de-dusting machine before they are manually segregated into those that can be and cannot be recycled. “The ones with multilayer packing and lamination cannot be recycled. So we shred them to be used in the construction of roads. We supply the shredded plastic to Green Kerala Mission as well as the Uralungal Labour Contractors’ Cooperative Society,” said Mr. Karat.

The recyclable plastic is melted at high temperature and converted into plastic lumps that are in high demand for manufacture of pipes for agriculture.

Green Worms collect their raw materials from around 80 residents’ associations in the district, nine hospitals in the city, a few apartment complexes and panchayats. The plastic bottles are sub-segregated on the basis of colour and quality, crushed and sent to recycling plants in Gujarat, from where they come out as polyester yarn. Waste rexins often substitute coal in the cement kilns as fuel.

However, recycling e-waste is the most complicated affair, said Mr. Karat. “The scrap dealers often discard the plastic after extracting metal parts from e-waste. They have no other option,” he said.

“But, recycling is not the simplest answer to the waste management woes of Kerala, reduction is,” added Mr. Karat.

Of the city’s first five public e-toilets built now, four are ready for public use.

Built by Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd. (HPCL) for Mangaluru City Corporation, two each are in Lalbagh and Kadri Park and another one is near the Government Wenlock Hospital in Hampankatta.

The public sector oil company has built them under its corporate social responsibility, a corporation official told The Hindu .

They said that the toilet near the hospital cannot be commissioned immediately due to an issue pertaining to linking it to the sewage network. A portion of the concrete road would have to be cut for taking up this work.

The other four toilets have been provided with water, electricity facility and linked to the sewage network.

M. Vasanta Rao, Chief Regional Manager, HPCL, said that the company spent Rs. 30 lakh on them at Rs. 6 lakh each. He said that the toilets would be commissioned this month, if possible next week. A user could enter the toilet by inserting Rs. 1 coin and also coins of other denomination.

The corporation official said that the unmanned toilet had automatic flushing and sanitising facility. When a user entered it, lights and the exhaust fan will switch on automatically and go off once the user leaves the toilet. Hand wash facility will also be available.

Mr. Rao said that the company would hand them over to the civic body after they are commissioned. They would have to be maintained by the corporation.

He said that the company would continue to associate with the civic body this year too. It could be building more public toilets or any other project as suggested by the civic body.

Mangaluru selected under smart city mission of the Union government hitherto lacked e-toilets.