Pvt lorries with uncovered garbage bother commuters

Overloaded garbage trucks plying on the road with no cover or netting facility to hold the domestic waste together have become an increasing menace in the southern suburbs of the city, claim residents.

This issue is more prevalent in Tambaram, Sembakkam and Pallavaram municipalities which do not have a local dump yard. Thus local bodies in these areas are forced to transport the garbage to a dump yard at Vedangamangalam to offload them.

Sources claimed that when there is a standing order to use only dump trucks for collecting the garbage, the municipality sometimes uses private lorries for taking the garbage to the dump yard even without covering it.

“When the lorries travel on the road, mounds of garbage will fall on the motorists and other commuters who travel behind the vehicle. Most of the lorries used to travel at a high speed at the Vandalur-Kelambakkam road where the motorists suffer a lot,” said Karthikeyan a regular commuter of the Vandalur-Kelambakkam Road. “If they are not using a dump trucks, at least they should not overload the lorry with garbage”.

The public also complained that besides the threat of garbage falling on motorists and other road users who share the road, these overloaded lorries also leave behind a trail of garbage on the road which is not only unhygienic but also produces a stench.

When questioned about the menace faced by the people, Pallavaram Munipality Sanitary Officer A Selvaraj said, “Our municipality lorries are covered with nets. When there are more tonnes of garbage, sometimes we do rent private lorries and it is possible that they were ply without covering the garbage with nets.”

He added that in future, the municipality staff will advise private vehicles to cover the garbage. “If they are not going to pay heed to our advice, then we will take appropriate action against these vehicles,” Selvaraj said.