Civic body goes door-to-door with zero waste campaign

In the campaign named ‘Zero waste Chennai’, the volunteers of CAG and Chennai Corporation’s malaria workers visited as many as 2,000 houses to explain the residents about source segregation and its benefits. “The aim of the campaign is to achieve 100 per cent source segregation and 100 per cent composting of organic waste. Our animators explained the residents about the wet waste, dry waste and sanitary waste,” Vamsi, researcher – urban governance, CAG said.

During the campaign, Chennai Corporation Deputy Commissioner (Health) P Madhusudan Reddy and other officials participated.

Meanwhile, a Chennai Corporation official said that the civic body was implementing several measures to compost the organic waste so as to reduce the amount of garbage going to landfills. “We are also coordinating with the residents of apartments to compost and recycle waste generated in the apartments,” he said.

Vamsi added that the campaign would be conducted every day and would cover the entire city. “Door-to-door campaign will be the effective way to create awareness,” he said.

An official said that due to consistent efforts, the quantity of the garbage going to the landfills has been reduced by around 300 tonnes every day. Earlier, the civic body dumped more than 5,500 tonnes in Kodungaiyur and Perungudi landfills. “We have set up more than 350 mulching pits in several parks and we are encouraging residents residing around the parks to dump their wet waste so that we can produce manure,” the official said.