Mandaveli residents beat the odds and compost waste

Greater Chennai Corportion tasks animators with creating awareness about proper waste management among residents. With these GCC-employed workers put on COVID-19 containment duty, there is a vacuum.

However, this has not made any difference to two neighbourhoods in Mandaveli as waste segregating and composting have been continuing during the lockdown.

Two weeks ago, around 75 kg of compost was harvested at Shalom Apartment in Thiruveedhi Amman Koil Street in Mandaveli. Another apartment Sreshta Suraj on the same street took out 50 kg of compost. Many other apartments in Thiruveedhi Amman Koil Street continue to segregate waste. Although the private enterprise engaged by Thiruveedhi Amman Koil Residents Association suspended services, the residents have been carrying out waste-segregation.

We will be using this compost for the plants and trees along our streets and for our gardens, says TAKSRA members K.L. Bala and Ramkumar M. Krishnan.

Residents of Dwaraka Apartment and a few other apartments at Raja Street in Mandaveli harvested compost recently. There again, the enterprise engaged by the Mandaveli Raja Street Residents Welfare Association had suspended their services due to the lockdown.

“That was the only setback during the lockdown. Some residents who were not able to keep stock of the plastic waste in their houses handed it over to the conservancy workers but continued with composting,” says Ganga Sridhar, a member of the Association.