Waste Management

At Sabari Terrace, an apartment community with 56 flats off the Old Mahabalipuram Road (OMR) in Sholinganallur, we took the first steps towards segregation around five years ago. It started with the creation of a few humble compost pits within our premises - cement rings resting on the ground - where we would dump all our garden waste to begin with. We approached the guru of vermicomposting, Dr. Sultan Ahmed Ismail, and under his guidance started the process of composting our garden waste. Gradually over the next few weeks, months and years, we started approaching the families in the community,…

In a much-awaited move, the Greater Corporation of Chennai (GCC) is all set to launch its bin-less waste transfer process on a pilot basis in a few of the wards in its newly added areas, which would eventually be extended to cover all of the 15 zones. This would mean that GCC is planning to focus on source segregation and waste processing, instead of the current method of street bins being emptied into compactor trucks which transport the garbage to the dumping yards. As discussed in the first part of this story, lack of source segregation and waste processing mechanisms…

 As the flood waters started to recede, one of the main issues that the city of Chennai grappled with in the aftermath of the recent floods was the clearing of tonnes of garbage strewn all across the city. Chennai Corporation employees with the help of volunteers cleared 1.32 lakh tonnes of garbage from the streets of Chennai. This was a grimy reminder of the impending crisis of solid waste management (SWM) faced by the residents of Chennai. According to The Waste-to-Energy Research and Technology Council (WTERT), the city generates 6,404 tonnes of garbage every day with an average per capita of…