KOCHI: After the harrowing days of flat demolitions and allegations of coastal zone violations, Maradu Municipality is charting a plan to preserve the pristine region outlined with backwaters. Launching the ‘Ente Maradu, Clean Maradu’ initiative, the Maradu municipality is on a mission to restructure waste management and scientific collection across its territory. The local body aims to ensure timely treatment of non-biodegradable waste by appointing designated collection staff under Haritha Karma Sena.
“We have started a long-term plan to preserve the scenic beauty of the region with a regular functioning mechanism for waste management. The municipality has distributed trolleys to the members of Haritha Karma Sena to collect plastic waste from every division. The collected waste will then be moved to shredding units established with the support of the Clean Kerala mission,” said Antony Ashanparambil, chairman, Maradu Municipality.
Unlike many other local bodies, where collection centres are overflowing with plastic waste, Maradu has devised a plan to treat the garbage on time. “The plan is to convert the collected plastic in granules and sell them to Clean Kerala Mission. The municipality will collect `60 from each household that give their plastic waste and will also provide financial support to the workers under the MGNREGA scheme,” he said.
Along with the shredding, the local body is subsidising the required equipment to promote treating the biodegradable waste at its source. “We have already distributed bio bin, biogas plant and pipe compost to more than 80 per cent of households in the municipality. We are providing a 10 per cent subsidy on all these equipment to popularise the initiative among the residents,” he said.
Lack of space for setting up a centralised facility has pushed the administration to take a different approach. “We don’t have enough space to set up a large plant to treat the waste. Though we have tried to bring our waste to Brahmapuram, the ongoing issues at the plant have foiled the move. Still, we have made good progress through the current approach. According to our recent survey, only five per cent of the total population are callously throwing their garbage on the streets. Though we are a small local body, Maradu is trying to achieve a litter-free municipality in future,” added Antony.
Thumboormuzhi model
Along with the ongoing projects, the municipality will launch the ‘Thumboormuzhi model’ of waste management plants in Govt VHSS Mangayil and Nettoor PHC by next week. The officials are planning to expand the projects to every division across the municipality. Under the Thumboormuzhi model, biodegradable waste will be converted to compost with the help of aerobic bins, which can be used for soil conditioning for farming and gardening.