CHENNAI: PMK president Anbumani Ramadoss on Tuesday urged the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) to abandon the waste-to-energy project at Kodungaiyur garbage dumping yard completely and should come forward to implement the concept of Zero Waste as soon as possible.

In a statement, he said that the Kodungaiyur dumping yard is spread across 342 acres and garbage that has been dumped there for almost 50 years has accumulated to the extent of 66 lakh cubic meters.

"The Chennai Corporation will implement a project to remove the garbage through bio-mining and restore the land at a cost of Rs 640 crore. Chief Minister M K Stalin laid the foundation stone for this project a few days ago. This project is to be welcomed as around 250 acres of land reclaimed through this project will be put to productive use and the chances of environmental degradation and disease in the area will be less in the future," he said.

Anbumani, however, opposed the corporation plant to set up a waste-to-energy plant at Kodungaiyur at Rs 1026 crore to incinerate the garbage to be accumulated in the future.

Pointing to the ill effects of the waste-to-energy project, he said that of all the power generation projects, the waste-to-energy causes more harm.

"It emanates 28 times more dioxin than coal-based thermal station, three times more Nitrogen Oxide, 14 times more mercury, six times more sulfur dioxide, and two and a half times more carbon dioxide are released from waste incinerators than coal-fired power plants. Such toxins cause diseases like cancer, heart disease, respiratory diseases, impotence, skin disease, liver damage, and asthma," he said.

He demanded the Corporation take up source segregation of garbage and a scientific approach to garbage handling.