Koyambedu market: Fragrant at dawn, smelly by afternoon

It is almost 9 am. A steady crowd of buyers make their way through the lanes of vegetable stalls at Koyambedu market. From the heaps of beans to the neatly arranged tomatoes and the sought-after potatoes, the bargaining and buying continue. Past noon, the brisk business slows down, as the customers are reduced to a trickle.

The layers of vegetable waste — banana leaves, leaves and stems of vegetables that were chopped before sale — increase. Move to the fruit stalls nearby, the packaging materials and rotten fruit lie in a heap, emanating a citric odour. 

One bike runs over the remains, splattering the insides of the fruit and vegetable, leaving behind a slushy mess. One of the sweepers from a private company hired to keep the market clean, scoops up some of the waste among the vegetable stalls, sighs and says, “I clean up this place twice a day, but it is never completely clean. 

Even as I sweep, the floor is quickly covered with a carpet of leaves, and discarded veggies.” Outside the stall, there are three JCB earthmovers scooping up the waste as cows rummaged through it, looking for an afternoon meal. Of the 200 tonnes of waste that the market generates, 30 tonnes is sent to a biogas plant  and the rest is transported to dumpyards.

A vegetable vendor inside the market, however, blames the shoddy work by the conservancy workers. “They fail to clean the place thoroughly. The garbage clogs the sewage lines underneath,” says Murugan, pointing out to a heap of onion remains next to his stall.

There are more than 2,500 shops inside the complex, a large section of them are vegetable stalls, followed by fruit and flower shops. S Chandran, the president of Koyambedu Market Licensed Merchants’ Association, points out the difficulties in source segregation. “Every seller has one kind of vegetables in his stall. Some of them discard leaves, some remove stems and it is hard for them to differentiate the wet waste from the dry one. The conservancy workers try to do their best to separate them, but it is practically impossible for all of them to follow suit,” he said.

Sultan Ismail, the director of Ecoscience Research Foundation, who was part of the team that gave inputs about recycling the waste generated within the premises when the market had first opened in the late 90s, said that in this situation, composting would be a viable solution. “We had set up 30 units on a land nearby and about two tonnes of waste were taken and composted in the pits. The sludge from the nearby sewage treatment plan — which did not show presence of heavy metals — was also part of the plan to recycle the market waste. That, however, didn’t take off,” he said. Ismail added that the resultant manure from the composting units could be given an incentive for any farmer who brought his produce to the market.

Exnora Green Pammal, an NGO, that works towards minimising waste, too has been trying to get the authorities on board for the composting plan. “Nothing came through, after some rounds of talks,” said Mangalam Balasubramanian, founder of the organisation. She added, “It is important to segregate at the source for the recycling to be beneficial. Since we have a tropical climate, there is no need of huge investment in machinery, and composting can be carried out organically.” She added that the bio gas plant that has been functioning on the premises for years could also present a great source for composting in the form of the slurry from it. “Almost 60 to 70 per cent of it is slurry and it is a rich compost material for composting,” she said.

The experts rued the lack of planning in implementation of the bio gas plant. They also observed that the plant is often stays out of order and needs frequent repairs. “The authorities could have gone for smaller plants for more efficient functioning. The caloric value of the waste is affected when it is walked over or smashed by vehicles. The garbage should be segregated at source so that they can be used to produce both biogas and manure,” said Ismail.

VR Soundararajan, former member of Market Management Committee and president of Koyambedu Potato Wholesale Merchants Association, said that a proposal from the government could pave way for more effective solutions to utilise the waste. “We will be on board, but at the moment there is little being planned or proposed by them. They can’t expect the vendors to come up with solutions on their own,” he said.

An official from the MMC said that the bio gas plant is effective in its current capacity. “We have been generating electricity from the plant for use at the CMBT. But, we have sought another plant to be installed. Now, we have only one functioning plant,” he said. The official added that land for the composting unit has already been earmarked. “We have removed encroachments and the composting units will be set up soon,” he said.

The KWMC spreads  over an area of  295 acres.
Provisions are stored in 40 acres.
Vegetable, fruit and flower stalls take up 25 acres.