“Waste is the biggest issue,” said Mayor Beena Philip while speaking to the media on Monday about the stray dog menace in the city.
Even as people kept complaining that the Kozhikode Corporation was not keen on removing waste from homes and establishments regularly, a large number of them were still reluctant to pay user fee to the Haritha Karma Sena (HKS) that collects waste, she said.
“There are people who claim that they do not have waste at home to avoid paying the HKS. Then they burn plastic in their backyards,” health standing committee chairperson S. Jayasree told The Hindu. On Monday, she told reporters that some people continued to keep food and plastic waste together despite repeated requests and warnings, thus making segregation difficult for HKS members. There were also cases of food waste being dumped around collection points of the HKS, where its members neatly piled bags of plastic waste before transporting them to the nearest material collection facility, making it a haunt of street dogs.
There are also wards where people demand that the Corporation collect waste free of cost. The user fee from houses and establishments is at present the only source of income for HKS members. The new batch of HKS members is being trained to segregate plastic waste scientifically, so that the sale of segregated plastic could fetch them an additional income. “At some point, the HKS will be self-sustainable through the sale of plastic and then user fee could be waived. Until then, the public need to support the HKS,” said the Mayor.
However, that might not be a possibility, said Manalil Mohanan, coordinator of Hariyali HKS in Vadakara. “How much ever we try, we never get more than ₹1.5 lakh a month from the sale of segregated plastic. We need at least ₹30 lakh to pay salary to HKS members. Waiving user fee is out of question,” he said.
