THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Almost every water body network in the capital is clogged with tonnes of plastic, silt and every kind of waste, making the city vulnerable to flash flood and floodings. Though various departments have launched flood mitigation and pre-monsoon cleaning, in the absence of a centralised waste treatment plant, the authorities have landed in a fix with no way to dispose of tonnes of waste removed from the canals.
To address it, the Suchitwa Mission has roped in Germany-based Plastic Fischer, a social enterprise company that collects floating plastics from rivers and water bodies and prevents them from entering the ocean. According to sources, the Suchitwa Mission, city corporation, and the irrigation department will enter into a three-year agreement with the company.
The primary objective of the initiative is to stop marine plastic pollution of the area in and around city by creating infrastructure for long-term operations. The plan is to collect 550 metric tonnes of plastic for three years.
Green Worms, an NGO, will officially sign an agreement with multiple departments to roll out the project. Sreerag Kuruvat, project head of Green Worms said in the first year, the plan is to install 12 systems at identified locations in the stormwater drains and rivers passing via the city.
“We plan to collect 78 tonnes of plastic waste during the first. In the second year, we would collect around 300 tonnes. We aim to create around 25 full-time jobs through the project,” said Sreerag.
To collect waste from different water bodies, Plastic Fischer has some proven solutions. The company will deploy systems such as regular trash booms, trash blocks, fabric trash booms and walkable trash booms at select locations of the stormwater drains and canals.
“We plan to deploy 25 such systems at select locations. These will last for a long term. Our other objective is to set up an MRF (material recovery facility) to sort the waste removed from the canals,” said Sreerag. The plan is to dry the waste using a drying machine and then sort out the recyclable and non-recyclable waste. More than 95 per cent of the waste is considered non-recyclable plastic. These will then be sent to geocycle cement factory to use as a supplement for fossil fuels.
The project will cover all major stormwater drains including Amayizhanchan Canal, Parvathy Puthanar, Ulloor Thodu, Pattom Thodu and Thekkanakkara canal falling under the jurisdiction of the irrigation department.