‘Only 21 percent households in city do source segregation’

As per the report prepared by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Chennai has a total of 16,71,277 households, of which only 3,53,141 households are doing waste segregation. This is only 21 per cent.

The civic body is collecting around 5,000 tonnes of solid waste in the city. Of the total garbage collected, about half of it, or nearly 2,500 tonnes, is wet and bio-degradable waste. “We have been emphasising more on the solid waste management and taken several steps to cut down the quantity of waste dumped in yards. Our aim is to compost 2,500 tonnes of wet waste before the end of this year. This will reduce the quantity of waste sent to landfills every day,” said G Prakash, Chennai Corporation Commissioner.

When asked about the findings of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Prakash explained that the civic body has been creating awareness among the public to increase source segregation.

“We have appointed animators to conduct door-to-door awareness campaigns. They have been asked to intensify their campaign. Gate meeting is being conducted every week to sensitise conservancy workers, who in turn explain to the public about the need for source segregation,” he added.

According to the report, Ambattur zone has 95,226 households that segregate their waste – the highest among the 15 city zones. There totally are 1,65,346 households in the zone. On the other end of the spectrum is Alandur zone, where only 5,044 households of the total 66,133 are segregating their waste.

Chennai Corporation has already started to set up composting pits in parks to compost garbage collected from areas around them. “We have a plan to set up composting pits at the corner of streets using unused plastic water tanks. Residents of the particular street could compost their wet waste using these tanks,” an official said.