A month after Madurai Corporation rolled out source segregation of waste, the initiative is struggling on three fronts: irregular door-to-door collection, poor public cooperation and inadequate infrastructure, particularly garbage collection vans.
Madurai: Madurai corporation made four-way waste segregation mandatory on September 1, but a month later, it failed to ensure the daily doorstep collection needed to make the system work. A Tamil Nadu Science Forum survey submitted on September 25 found that only 44% of respondents reported daily collection; 38% waited more than two days. Madurai’s master plan recorded shortages of 81 battery-operated vehicles, 184 light commercial vehicles and 25 heavy commercial vehicles. In August, more than 300 of the city’s roughly 980 street waste bins were in poor condition, say reports.
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“Even on days that daily collection does happen, vehicles reach our homes very late, after most of us have left the house to go to work or school, causing the waste to go uncollected yet again,” said T Thangadurai of Sellur. Worker Manickam said requests for vehicles had gone unanswered for months. This creates more work for the workers who have to clean the waste from the roads and channels,” he said. “According to the rules, penalties are to be levied on everyone that does not follow source segregation and gives their waste in a single bin or bag. But we cannot fine the whole city,” a senior official said. They should secure the bins themselves,” the official said. We are analysing points of failure as well as success and looking into creating awareness among the public as well as improving waste collection methods,” the official said.
Irregular pickups, insufficient collection vehicles and poor public cooperation have left waste accumulating along roadsides and overflowing from bins, while sanitation workers still separate mixed garbage by hand. Under the initiative, households should sort wet, dry, sanitary and hazardous waste into separate bins or bags before morning collection. But residents say vehicles visit several localities only two or three times a week. In MK Puram, sanitation workers lack vehicles for doorstep collection. “Without daily collection, residents dump waste on the roads or into open water channels. The infrastructure deficit extends beyond doorstep pickup. The corporation instructed workers to reject mixed waste and penalise non-compliant households, but widespread resistance has complicated enforcement. Residents have sought corporation-supplied bins, a demand officials reject. “There are more than five lakh houses in Madurai within the corporation limits. “The first month was a learning experience. Download the TOI App.
Madurai generates more than 900 tonnes of waste daily, around 52% biodegradable. they processed just 18.39 tonnes Although 36 of 38 micro-composting centres were operational in August. The failure also affects processing. Inadequate shredding machinery limits their utilisation. Instead, mixed waste from households and street-cleaning drives reaches transfer stations, where workers segregate it manually before transportation to Vellakkal dumping yard.