Source segregation at houses a far dream as old habits die hard

The failure in implementing the source segregation, despite new infrastructure, is palpable as the residents continue to dump their dry and wet waste in the garbage bins together. The conservancy works in Adyar and Teynampet have already been handed over to Urbaser SA and Sumeet Facilities Ltd recently. The consortium has deployed battery-operated vehicles to ensure door-to-door collection.

“We have separate bins for the wet and dry waste in the door-to-door garbage collection vehicles. But the residents dump their garbage without segregating them,” a conservancy worker attached to Teynampet zone said.

The Chennai Corporation has mandated source segregation waste in the contract given to the consortium and the private player placed separate garbage bins on streets for wet and dry waste.

“There is not enough awareness among the residents about the source segregation. Also, we do not know at what time the conservancy workers visit the streets for door-to-door collection. The time varies each day. Due to this, residents are dumping their waste in garbage bins,” P Vishnu, a resident said.

A Chennai Corporation official confirmed that the responsibility of source segregation has been entrusted on the private consortium.

“However, they have six months’ time to implement it fully. After six months, we can penalise for any failure. Also, source segregation was affected due to COVID-19. Amount of waste processing had come down to 300 tonnes per day to more than 600 tonnes. We are picking up,” he added.

The official said that the agreement with Ramky Enviro Engineers has been finalised and they would start operation in January.