Garbage piles continue to be an eyesore

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Garbage heaps are still a common sight even though the corporation had introduced door-to-door garbage collection and installed aerobic bins and material recovery facility across the city. Recently, the city corporation removed about 18 sacks of poultry waste dumped along the road in Thirumala. 

Lack of surveillance cameras seems to have aided violators to use the margins of the road to dump waste. Besides slaughter waste, the garbage mounts also include household waste. 

Usually, middlemen play a major role in dumping waste in public places. They collect waste from hotels and meat shops for a price, then transport it in trucks, only to be dumped in deserted places. Depending on the shops and the quantity of waste, the amount collected by middlemen varies from Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 per day. “A large quantity of poultry waste is generated everyday.

Waste is generally collected based on its weight. We usually hand over the waste to the middlemen but we are unaware of how they dispose of it,” says a butcher shop owner in Palayam market. With the dumping of animal waste and septage in water bodies and roadsides becoming rampant, the city corporation has appointed special health squads to nab the offenders. “Although an initiative was taken to get slaughterhouses and restaurants in the city registered with the waste-collecting agencies of the corporation, many continue to hand over the waste to unregistered agencies, which collect and dump these in public places instead of taking it to processing centres,” said Mayor V K Prasanth. 

The mayor also said that the squads will simultaneously work in different areas of the city. Stringent action such as imposing a fine up to Rs 1,000 will be taken against offenders. CCTV cameras will also be installed in the city. 

The corporation authorities said that a government-level intervention is crucial in bio-waste management. “There should be an isolated region to segregate meat waste and it should be addressed soon,” said a corporation official.