The Hindu 05.08.2013
Kudumbasree workers and the plastic waste conundrum
For Kudumbasree sanitation workers in the city, plastic
waste has always been a problem of sorts, right from whether it should
be collected along with other waste to what should be done once it is
collected. The opening of a plastic-waste-processing unit at West Hill
by the city Corporation in March this year was expected to put to rest
these issues, but questions still remain.
The
Kudumbasree workers used to collect plastic waste till about two years
ago. They were instructed to stop it when the civic body started
thinking of waste segregation. This continued until the opening of the
plastic processing plant four months ago. But within a month, problems
began to crop up as the workers were expected to deliver ‘clean’ plastic
waste. The workers are supposed to be paid Rs.4 for every kg of plastic
waste they deliver at the plant.
During the opening
of the plant, Mayor A.K. Premajam had said that only clean plastic would
be recycled in the plant. She urged the people to adopt the practice of
proper segregation of waste in households. Kudumbasree workers were
asked not to collect plastic bags or waste soiled with remains of food
or other items.
“We had told people to give us only
clean plastic waste. But this did not have any effect, and most of the
time we ended up cleaning it ourselves. The waste is not segregated
also. The segregation and the cleaning started taking up more time than
the actual waste collection. The plastic that we get is soiled badly
with food waste of many days,” says P.T. Girija, one of the workers.
When contacted by
The Hindu
, Janamma Kunjunni, chairperson of the Corporation’s standing committee
on health, blamed the Kudumbasree workers for the state of affairs at
the plant.
“There is no facility to segregate waste
at the plant. Only processing is done there. The Kudumbasree workers
sometimes throw all the waste without segregation. So the amount of
rejects is high,” says Ms. Kunjunni.