Tiruchi Corporation to continue collection of unwanted household goods

The initiative to collect unwanted and used household waste at the ‘Reduce, Reuse, Recycle’ (RRR) centres, launched by Tiruchi Corporation to limit the city’s daily waste generation capacity, has been received well by residents.

The initiative to collect unwanted and used household waste at the ‘Reduce, Reuse, Recycle’ (RRR) centres, launched by Tiruchi Corporation to limit the city’s daily waste generation capacity, has been received well by residents.

The pilot project to encourage city residents to deposit their unwanted and used household waste at the RRR centres has yielded a good response making the civic body continue the initiative. “Since the initiative got a positive response from the public, we are planning to make this a permanent feature of Tiruchi’s public sanitation programme to improve Swachch Bharat rankings,” said a senior Corporation official.

The RRR centres set up at the 39 micro compost centres across the city have collected more than 27.8 tonnes of recyclable and reusable waste between May 20 and June 6. Officials said that of the 27.8 tonne of waste handed over by residents and shops, plastic constitutes 9,452 kg, while paper and books account for 7,854 kg, followed by 3,976 kg of clothes, 3,963 kg of glass, 1,863 kg of bedsheets, and 721 kg of toys.

The civic body has identified an NGO to clean the waste clothes handed over to produce cloth bags for reuse. The bags will have Tiruchi Corporation tags and a mark to denote that they were made from recyclable waste, which will be distributed for free in vegetable markets across the city to prevent the circulation of plastic carry bags.

“The clothes which are in good condition were placed at the Wall of Happiness complex on Allithurai road to help poor families to reuse them. Books with pages intact and readable were handed over to Corporation schools, and toys which were sorted and sanitised were retained by the Corporation to give to deserving beneficiaries,” said the official.

Combustible waste products that can neither be reused nor recycled will be sent to cement factories for use as refuse-derived fuel to power kilns, while paper and plastic waste was sold to scrap dealers. The civic body has also planned to set up a separate section to receive electrical and electronic waste, including gadgets and computer accessories, to help residents dispose of such products safely.