CHENNAI: The Citizen Consumer and Civic Action Group (CAG), which works with the City Corporation, as part of zero waste initiative, recently conducted a survey at 15 material recovery facilities (MRF) in Zone 7 (Ambattur) to gauge the effectiveness of the decentralised resource recovery system.
According to the report, some of the major challenges include lack of source segregation, improper cleaning of the dry waste and no provision of quality safety gear to the conservancy workmen. “Anything other than bio and sanitary waste goes into the blue bin. But, we observed that most of the public are still unaware about this and tend to mix all the waste, making secondary segregation more tedious,” said Satyarupa Shekhar, director-urban governance, CAG.
Due to this, apart from biowaste, even e-waste, which has many buyers in the market, is entering MRFs. Common household items that go into the blue bin include plastic, cloth, glass, metal, rubber and paper-- most of which is recoverable. However, a large portion of it is going waste due to improper cleaning.
“If a soiled wet cloth or a plastic box, which still has some food is discarded in the blue bin, the value of all the recoverable items that go inside later is reduced. If the public ensure that the boxes are washed and items are dry, lot of the material can be recovered,” Satyarupa explained.
Another important issue which the City Corporation has not acted on for decades now is lack of provision of quality safety gear to the conservancy workmen. They continue to provide only surgical masks and gloves, which are not suitable for this environment.