Chennai: Chennai corporation’s source segregation of waste by asking public to separate degradable and non-degradable waste before disposal has failed with public not co-operating in several wards, admit confidential sources with the civic body.
Another major decision directing restaurants and hotels to reduce waste within their own premises had also landed in to trouble with hoteliers crying foul explaining their difficulties to compost waste.
However, officials hinted that residents welfare associations and gated communities in south Chennai were responding positively to the recent initiative by the corporation.
On October 2, the city corporation announced that as per the union municipal solid waste (Management and Handling) Rules 2000, later amended as solid waste management rules 2016 those who generate waste should recycle and reduce it to compost.
“The rules state that every waste generator shall segregate and store the waste generated by them in three separate streams degradable, non-bio-degradable and domestic hazardous wastes in suitable bins and handover these segregated wastes to authorised rag pickers or waste collectors, but there is no co-operation from public,” said a corporation official in Royapuram zone.
“All these days the corporation was handling the waste management and now the public is blamed for generating waste. First the corporation should ban plastic and the hazardous materials and after that they can insist the public on source segregation,” said R. Nandagopal, a resident of Pursawalkam. Once when there is no plastic or hazardous waste in the solid waste, the process of recycling becomes faster, he added.
