TIRUCHY: Initiatives taken up by civic body officials and sanitation workers over the past few months to encourage source segregation is paying off. The corporation team has got the full cooperation of residents of Lakshmipuram (Ward 16), and all the 189 houses have been giving segregated waste to the sanitation workers for the past 30 days.
Officials said Lakshmipuram is the first street to achieve 100 % source segregation. "We appreciate the cooperation of the residents. But, we still have to ensure similar results from all the wards and our team is trying its to achieve that," corporation commissioner R Vaithinathan said.
People visiting Lakshmipuram, the street coming under Ariyamangalam zone, will also see the streets are free from litter. Bala, a resident of Lakshmipuram, said, "We are keeping degradable and non-degradable waste separately. We started doing that after the sanitation officer and workers explained the inconvenience created by unsegregated waste.
Though we accidentally mixed up the waste one or two times, the workers accepted it and segregated it in front of us before putting it in the garbage truck. After that incident, I understood their difficulties and ensured that we always hand over segregated waste." A sanitation worker said, "There are about 39 micro-compost centres in the city.
The waste collected from various wards will be sent to the nearest micro-compost centre. Since several residents are giving waste in an unsegregated manner, sanitation workers at the compost centre have to spend a lot of time on segregating the waste. If all the residents start giving us segregated waste, it will be a great relief for us." With the success achieved in one ward, the corporation top brass is expecting that constant effort would ensure similar results from the remaining wards.
However, many of them admitted that the civic body has still a long way to go before achieving the target. "For the past 30 days, we are getting a positive response from 189 houses. But, we still have to work hard to ensure similar results from over 2 lakh houses. We will have to try various strategies to ensure 100% collection of segregated waste across the city," a senior official said.