CHENNAI: The city Corporation collected a total of 22.58 tonnes of cracker waste on Saturday and Sunday across all 15 zones, of which the day of Deepavali accounted for 21.9 tonnes. Last year, the Corporation collected a total of 64.5 tonnes over three days. In 2017, it collected around 80 tonnes of cracker waste at the end of festivities. Even though there was less waste, the 19, 585 sanitary workers deployed on rotation basis had their task cut out.
Srinivasan, a sanitary worker in Old Washermenpet, normally starts at 8 am to clean streets and gets it done by 10 am. However, on Monday, he started at 5 am and went on till 1 pm. ‘’I made at least 20 trips from the streets back to the resource recovery centre (where the collected waste is dumped) covering about 15 km” said Srinivasan, who pulls his heavy tricycle with punctured tyres. Conforming to TNPCB guidelines, the cracker waste is sent to the hazardous waste disposal facility near Gummidipoondi. Many sanitary workers in Mambalam, T Nagar, Parry’s and Tondiarpet were seen working without safety gear.
A sanitary worker from Neelankarai said, “I worked till 1:30 pm yesterday. When my husband and children were praying at home in the morning, I was here collecting waste.” Rain on Sunday night made matters worse. The waste went into drains and manholes too. “The silver chemical pollutants take a hard scrub to leave our body. The low quality polythene gloves tears and with the scrub broom, it’s hard to push the wet paper waste aside,’’ said Shantha G, a contract worker.