Corpn to turn garden waste into compost

Coimbatore: Working on to turn Coimbatore into a garbage-free city, the city corporation is constructing 78 onsite composting centres (OCC) at parks across the city to make compost out of garden waste, such as dry leaves.
The corporation will construct OCCs at 271 parks in a phased manner, said an official involved in the project. “As many as 78 centres would be developed in the first phase of the project. We had issued work orders to commence the construction work recently. Some centres are expected to be functional within two months,” he said.
While the civic body’s micro composting centres (MCCs) would process wet household waste, OCCs would be specifically used to process garden waste, the official said. “Garden waste from parks and residential areas are currently collected and dumped in parks. Once the OCCs are functional, sanitary workers would collect garden waste and take them to the centres, where it would be dried, shredded, sieved and turned into compost. The compost would either be used in the parks or distributed to public.”
Each centre, constructed at a cost of Rs 7lakh, will have a capacity of 0.5 tonnes. Contractors in-charge of maintaining the parks would operate and maintain them.
“The centres would not attract flies or product foul odour as they handle dry waste. They will not cause any inconvenience to the public,” the official added.