In a major initiative, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Thursday made clear its intentions of putting an end to arbitrary garbage dumping in Tamil Nadu clear and said it would want to evolve a comprehensive scheme to deal with the menace.
The Southern Bench comprising Judicial Member Justice P Jyothimani and Expert Member Professor R Nagendran said in the open court that it would ask the government, in due course, to identify three sites in each of the districts in Tamil Nadu for setting up Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) management facilities. “We are also mulling creation of a monitoring committee to oversee the process. What we want to see is a scientific arrangement put in place so that this arbitrary dumping does not take place,” the bench observed while hearing a batch of cases that involved dumping of garbage on water bodies.
The bench said once the facilities are in place, there would be no escaping the statutory rules governing MSW management.
Elaborating on the need for a comprehensive initiative, Nagendran said the technology now available can very well facilitate proper and scientific disposal of waste. The cases that the NGT was hearing included garbage dumping in Ooty, Pallavarameri and Srinivasapuram in Chennai, Kannadapalayam in Tambaram and Kuthambakam.
However, while the NGT initiative of stopping unauthorized dumping was welcomed, experts felt centralisation of garbage management, by identifying specific sites, wouldn’t help in case of mixed garbage.
Dharmesh Shah, India coordinator for Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, said unless source segregation is achieved, no amount of centralised garbage management would help. Citing the case of Bangalore, he said the city which only recently faced major issues with its waste, is going through a process of decentralisation in its garbage management. In Europe too, large centralised projects are now being given up, he added.
Meanwhile, the government too, on Thursday, presented a document before the bench detailing the measures it had adopted for garbage management across the State. These included projects being implemented as well as those planned.