TRICHY: It is one issue that has united most Trichy residents irrespective of party affiliation and pitted them against the city corporation - the unilateral removal of garbage bins from public spots without listening to the public.
However, the urban civic body is in an unenviable position of seeing its workers removing garbage pile from spots where the bins once stood. Yet, it continues to be defiant even as every street has become a dump yard. Residents now want the candidates of the civic poll to pledge that garbage bins will be restored on streets.
In the absence of an elected council, the urban local body had decided to do away with the bins three years ago. Since March 2019, Trichy corporation has removed 1,172 bins in the four administrative zones here under the "bin free city initiative". Indeed, the roads did become bin-free, but the city has been overflowing with litter thereafter.
Citing the door-to-door waste collection, the civic body said that the presence of garbage bins would only burden the waste collection process as waste from the bins has to be removed separately. That would have made sense had doorstep waste collection been prompt.
In reality, it was quite the opposite - unpredictable and infrequent in the residential areas - forcing people to bundle the waste and dump it on vacant space where the bins were once placed. With over 2.3 lakh houses and properties in the city, the existing vehicles numbering around 40-60 mini-trucks, up to 10 trucks and around 10 battery vehicles per zone are inadequate to cover every household daily.
As some houses were covered under waste collection once in two-three days, residents, unable to stock waste, are forced to dump it on streets. Innovative and expensive mechanisms including QR code-enabled waste collection and RFID tracking have completely failed to streamline doorstep waste collection coverage.
"It was only after Trichy corporation removed the garbage bins that public littering on streets worsened. We need bins back and they should be emptied every day," Ijaz Raheem, a resident of Thennur, said. As waste collection vehicles don't maintain a stipulated time in arriving at the streets, residents said they are either dumping the discards on vacant space or paying sanitary workers to get rid of their waste. About Rs 500 is being paid by some residents every month.
"In certain wards, people are used to dumping waste in bins. Our workers are removing such litter every day before 7 am, but bringing bins back is unlikely," a senior Trichy corporation official said. "People are demanding restoration of bins. The council will discuss and study successful waste collection models in other cities to bring garbage bins back," Vijaya Jayaraj, DMK candidate for ward 11, said.
