The Times of India             04.11.2013

1,100 tonnes garbage collected in two days

MADURAI: When the residents of the temple city completed marathon cracker bursting sessions on Saturday and Sunday nights, it was the turn of sanitation workers of the Madurai Corporation to pick their brooms and get busy.

Almost all the roads, lanes and bylanes of the city were littered with burst cracker pieces, exhausted flower pots and rockets, empty sweet boxes and glittering gift papers that were used to wrap the cracker boxes.

The city generated a whopping 1,100 tonnes of waste in the last two days and disposed in the garbage yard at Vellakkal. "On November 2, we had cleared 482 tonnes of garbage while on November 3, 537 tonnes were cleared," said a senior officer in the city corporation. The official added that the total quantity of garbage could be much more as clearing could not be carried out in some places. For some, the Diwali celebrations are not yet over and continued to burst crackers. "Even as we clear people continued to dump waste," the official said.

As many as 100 trucks and 32 hired trucks were pressed into service for the clearance work. While the trucks made 315 trips on Saturday between various places in the city and the Vellakal garbage yard, they made 373 trips on Sunday.

In many places, the garbage bins overflowed spilling waste all around while in some places public had disposed of waste in a haphazard manner all along the roads making clearance difficult for the sanitary workers. Particularly, commercial spots in the heart of the city like the four Veli streets and Vilakuthoon had generated most of the waste. Besides, the traders and vendors in these places, floating population that thronged the locality had also dumped a lot of waste.

Corporation officials said that sharp showers also made sweeping impossible after Sunday afternoon and added that they expected garbage collection to be the highest on Monday.