As part of its efforts to make Avadi a zero-waste locality, the Avadi Municipal Corporation has restarted source segregation of waste and plans to cover all the wards in a fortnight.
Though the civic body had initiated waste segregation at household level earlier, it could not be sustained due to lack of sufficient vehicles. It has now procured 80 light compact vehicles and plans to use 100 vehicles for door-to-door collection.
Avadi Municipal Corporation officials said awareness was being created among residents about the methods of segregating garbage into wet waste, dry waste and biomedical waste. Every day, six wards are being covered for the campaign. Besides issuing pamphlets, residents’ welfare associations have also been roped in for the initiative.
A total of 825 workers would be engaged in the initiative and have been asked to follow physical distancing and safety norms while collecting waste. Nearly 1.5 lakh households in the 48 wards would be covered by this month-end.
N.Ravichandran, Avadi Municipal Commissioner, said on an average, about 90 tonnes of garbage was being generated daily. The initiative would help prevent dumping of garbage in vacant sites, public spaces and water canals.
While wet waste collected is composted in the 17 micro composting centres, dry waste is segregated and sold by employees. Besides using the incinerators to tackle biomedical waste, the civic body is planning to tie up with biomedical waste disposal agencies.
Meanwhile, the Corporation is implementing the biomining project to reclaim its dumpyard in Sekkadu. Biomining is a process where useful materials are segregated from mounds of garbage. Of the 64,174 cubic metre of waste planned to be cleared, nearly 15,000 cubic metre of garbage has been removed so far.
Though the work is slated to be completed by August this year, there would be a delay due to lockdown. Sales of dry waste, which proved challenging, were also being streamlined, said Mr. Ravichandran.
