THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: At a time when the city corporation is struggling to deal with growing plastic waste menace, the UNDP (United Nations Development Program-me) has voluntarily come forward with a helping hand to set up plastic recycling units in the state capital. The civic body will soon sign an MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) with UNDP for setting up multiple plastic recycling units in the state capital to put an end to the plastic waste menace.
The plan is to set up the plastic recycling units at the Resource Recovery Centre of the civic body at Manacaud and Muttathara. The recycling units would be set up by UNDP with the help of funding from multinational Cola company und-er the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR).
Mayor V.K. Prasanth told DC that the MoU would be signed soon with UNDP. He said that UNDP would be upgrading the Resource Reco-very Centres. “UNDP is already providing this service for a number of other cities in India. Thiruvananthapuram is the first city in South India being chosen by UNDP for the programme.
A preliminary discussion was held the other day and we are happy for the tie-up as plastic waste management rules mandate plastic recycling units, which we don’t have. We already have a system in place and segregation is happening,” said the Mayor.
He said that the UNDP approached the civic body because of the success of the decentralised waste management plan. “The operation and maintenance of the facilities would be carried out by UNDP for a period of five years. Only segregated and recyclable plastic would be brought to the facility, which would be turned into granules or blocks. The Clean Kerala Company would be supporting UNDP,” he added.
Environmental expert Shibu K.N. said that currently, the civic body is carting away plastic waste. “A large quantity of the plastic waste is getting recycled and the only menace is the low-value small format plastics which are getting dumped around. The recycling units would help manage this,” said Mr Shibu.
