Tamil Nadu’s smaller Corporations winning at waste game

It all started with Vellore, where the closure of the 100-year-old dumping yard in Sathupalayam village was marked with celebrations by the residents. “Imagine that your house is next to a dump yard – that is the empathy we should have,” said Prakash Govindasamy, commissioner, municipal administration. 

The closure of dump yard was possible because the Vellore Corporation had set up ward-level infrastructure to deal with the waste generated by the city’s 60 wards. “Forty two micro composting centres (MCC) were set up – each catering to a few wards. These centres were set up in lands belonging to Corporation, which will include composting units and a separate area for processing plastic waste for recycling by shredding machines,” said the official.

He added, “Vellore generates 230 metric tonnes (MT) per day of solid waste, 30MT/day is by bulk generators, who oversee their waste disposal. The biodegradable waste from households is composted, and plastic waste is recycled. Non-recyclable plastic and sanitary waste will be disposed through closed incineration. The official also said that there is 65 per cent of the waste gets segregated at source in Vellore. The current processing cost is Rs 635 tonnes per day (TPD).

Spurred by Vellore’s success story, decentralised micro composting centres are being set up in other Corporations such as Tiruchy, Salem, Dindigul, Tuticorin and Tirunelveli. “Tiruchy is closely following Vellore’s model, with 27 MCC centres set up to handle 160 MT of waste,” said Govindasamy. “We have tied up with a cement factory nearby for inert waste to be used in the cement-making procedure. Other Corporations – Tuticorin, Dindigul, Salem and Tirunelveli – will be decentralised soon,” he added.

Will such a decentralised system work in Chennai? Greater Chennai Corporation Commissioner D Karthikeyan does not think so. “Chennai is a complex city. A decentralised waste management system is difficult to implement here,” he added.