Pallavaram finds answers through compost centres

Chromepet, Pallavaram, Hastinapuram and Keelkatalai together makes Pallavaram municipality and it has a population of 3 lakh and 42 wards.

Sources said that there are seven MCCs built in the municipality and all of them are currently active. It has constructed 23 onsite compost centers in public parks, too. This enables the staff cleaning the parks to dump biodegradable waste there and later it would be used as fertilizer.

According to sources, they collect nearly 85 tonnes of garbage every day and 45 per cent of it is biodegradable. The capacity of the MCC is 48 tonnes and it takes more than 40 days for the garbage to turn into fertilizer.

Pallavaram municipal commissioner C Madhivanan said it is an easy process. We have 96 battery-operated vehicles to collect the garbage regularly and 30 mini autos. besides that, we have support from the public, too. They segregate the garbage by themselves and hand it over to conservancy workers in separate bags.

The plastic waste collected from the municipality would be sold to scrap dealers every Wednesday and the money earned from that would be divided among the workers, the source added. The non-biodegradable wastes will be sent to a cement factory in Vellore.