COIMBATORE: The Bharathiar University will soon study the characterization and quantification of solid waste that is generated in the city corporation limits.
A few months ago, the environmental science department of the university had sought permission from the civic body for its study titled ‘Municipal solid waste characterization and quantification as a measure towards effective waste management for Coimbatore city municipal corporation’.
“The corporation has given its nod to conduct the study at a particular area. Now, we are in the process of recruiting junior research fellows (JRFs) and field assistants for the study which is still in the initial stage. The duration of the study is three months,” a professor from the department said.
A corporation source said they had approached the university to conduct the study after the Tamil Nadu Agriculture University (TNAU) declined its request, citing shortage of manpower.
“The corporation wants to measure the percentage of each types of wastes like plastics, metals, sanitary and dry wastes generated in the city. It also wants to measure the percentage of heavy metal, its caloric values and pH value, found in garbage collected daily and devise an effective disposal mechanism. The study should be carried out in all the five zones and during multiple periods like festival season and weekends,” the source added.
After the lockdown was imposed to contain the spread of Covid-19 in March, the city’s garbage collection came down to 700 to 850 tonnes per day. Now, it has gradually increased to 850 to 950 tonnes per day. The quantity is still less when compared to the quantity generated before the lockdown period – 950 to 1,000 tonnes per day.
Meanwhile, chairperson of the state monitoring committee of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) for solid waste management P Jothimani conducted a review meeting with corporation officials on Tuesday. During the meeting, he directed the officials to speed up the solid waste management related works including construction of micro composting centres, source segregation of wastes and bio-mining process.