District Medical Officer warns of an epidemic outbreak

Garbage disposal in the city has been hit for the last 10 days. The corporation had signed a contract with a Salem-based company for removing the city’s garbage. However, garbage removal from the city to Salem got disrupted after residents of Salem protested against dumping the waste there. Protests were also held alleging corruption in the contract. With the disposal of waste hit, piles of garbage have started resurfacing in most parts of the city.

Road near Sakthan Nagar turns into a dumping yard

Though the Thrissur Corporation managed to enter into a contract with a private agency for garbage disposal, the city’s sanitation condition has not improved a bit. The Salem-based company, which removed two loads of waste for one day has not turned up after that. The rotten waste collected from various parts of the city has been heaped on Pattalam Road, located in the heart of the city, for the past one week.

Work on other waste management projects to continue

Garbage in Thrissur city is now being removed by a Salem-based company, amidst accolades and brickbats for the arrangement made by the corporation. Mayor I.P. Paul said that the arrangement would continue for at least three months till the corporation could streamline its projects for decentralised waste management in the city.

District Judge K. P. Jyothindranath who inspected Lalur, the Thrissur Corporation’s waste disposal site, recently has submitted his report to the High Court.

He inspected Lalur under a directive of the High Court that the district judge should review waste treatment in the site every six months. The report suggested that decentralised waste treatment plants should be set up at the earliest. “The processing units for plastic materials and bio-degradable wastes should be established in a large scale. Waste management systems for residents, apartments, hotels, markets and educational institutions should be promoted,” the report said.

Minister for Forests, Sports and Cinema K. B. Ganesh Kumar told the Assembly on Tuesday that the government proposed to take up programmes to regenerate forest cover.

Replying to the debate on the demand for grants for forest, the Minister said that the Department was undertaking regeneration of natural vegetation even in cities under the ‘Vana Deepti’ programme. One such scheme was being taken up in Thrissur town.

‘Move will destabilise efforts at decentralisation of process’

The Thrissur Corporation is planning to employ a private agency to remove the accumulated garbage from the city. According to corporation sources, a Salem-based agency has approached the civic body offering to remove the garbage at a cost of Rs.3 per kg. The company offered to take the un-segregated garbage to its plant at Salem for processing.

Faced with the challenge of finding a solution to the worsening waste management crisis across the State, the State government has initiated steps to establish integrated municipal solid waste treatment plants in five more urban local bodies in the State.

Suchitwa Mission, the government’s nodal agency for implementation of public sanitation and waste treatment schemes in the State, had earlier invited tenders to set up large scale waste treatment plants in Thiruvananthapuram and Kochi.

Four lakh carrybags are used in Thrissur every day

It took school children to show what the elders failed to do in the city. Alarmed by the increasing environmental threat posed by plastic, students of Devamatha CMI Public School in the city launched an anti-plastic drive by distributing 1,700 paper carrybags at the Sakthan Thampuran market on Friday.

Plastic carrybags below 40 microns is banned

The Thrissur Corporation is still grappling with the challenge of enforcing a ban on plastic carry bags in the city. The City Corporation declared a ban on plastic carrybags below thickness of 40 microns from July 1, 2011, with a promise to rid the city of the plastic menace. But with just a month away from the first anniversary of the ban, not a single street is seen without the litter of plastic carrybags.

Finding a permanent solution to the three-decade-old waste management problem of Thrissur city is the main agenda of the corporation, Deputy Mayor Subi Babu has said while presenting the annual budget for 2012-13.

The budget has earmarked Rs. 3 crore for the waste management project. Efforts will be taken to get maximum funds from the State government.