The Hindu 24.10.2014
Corporation moots new waste disposal plan
Emphasis on waste management at source
: After several unsuccessful attempts to rid the capital
city of garbage menace, the City Corporation is all set to adopt the
Alappuzha experiment in decentralized solid waste management.
T.M.
Thomas Isaac, MLA, who had spearheaded the Alappuzha experiment, and
Mayor K. Chandrika said at an interactive session with journalists here
on Wednesday that the Corporation would soon mount a broad movement for
garbage clearance and management with public participation.
“The
past is past. Our attempt will be to launch an initiative in campaign
mode to create awareness among homesteads about the need to process
waste at the source,” Dr. Isaac said.
The
Corporation, he said, would welcome any original initiative aimed at
solid waste management at source, but would generally go in for
composting that would help solve the garbage problem and also help
produce manure and biogas.
The emphasis would be on
mass participation and awareness creation so that garbage would not end
up on roads and various drains that crisscrossed the city. The
Erumakkuzhi garbage dump, adjacent to the Chala market, would be capped.
Efforts would also be made to convert it into a WAT-SAN (water and
sanitation) park.
Dr. Isaac conceded that there were
both credibility issues and sustainability questions that needed to be
addressed when launching this initiative. “Let us not rake up the past.
Our effort should be to look forward and see what we can do,” he said
and added that the campaign proposed to focus on school students, who
were the best campaigners for all such initiatives.
Simultaneously,
there would also be efforts to redefine the job profile of Corporation
employees from mere cleaners to change agents at the local level, he
said.
The Mayor said the Corporation would save more
than Rs. 20 lakh a month in diesel charges if there could be an
efficient decentralized solid waste management system in place in the
city.
The Corporation, she said, was trying to check
the use of plastic, but there were some practical difficulties in
enforcing total non-use of plastic bags.
Focus on mass participation
Water and sanitation park planned
