Chennai: The inhabitants of Sentamil Nagar and Kothari Nagar in Ramapuram, Chennai, face difficulties when it comes to disposing household garbage.
There are only four garbage bins for over twenty streets in this locality of Ramapuram. Residents of this area find themselves walking quite a distance before they can find a garbage disposal unit.
Rathnamala K, a resident of Sentamil Nagar, says, “I have to travel ten minutes from my house to find a waste dumpster. We used to have one at the end of our street, but it has been removed in order to make way for construction of a tea shop there.”
These sparsely located garbage bins are not even in good condition. They have waste overflowing onto the roads, attracting cows and dogs to feed off them. These animals are a huge hindrance. The residents complain about the lack of hygiene and cleanliness as these bins are rarely cleaned.
“We usually come to know that the bins have been cleared from the bleach powder sprinkled all around it. But even then plastic covers and waste materials can be found lying beneath the bins. The area is never cleaned properly,” says an angry resident of Kothari Nagar.
The people of the area recall Corporation people visiting the houses regularly on a fixed time to collect and segregate waste; This however, has now become irregular.
Kalyanraman, a resident from the same locality, says, “Last week, I saw a dead cat near the dumpster and it was not a pleasant sight. It took almost three days for the officials to clear the mess. It is a serious issue because we are all facing a garbage disposal crisis with the lack of accessible and usable garbage bins.”
“They banned plastics first and now they don’t visit our houses to collect waste. In what or how do they expect us to carry our trash all the way to the dumpsters? The Corporation workers tell us that they are not sent to collect waste by their higher officials. It becomes very unhygienic when we accumulate waste covers in our balconies till they pick it up from us,” rues Parvatham S.
The residents’ main request seems to be timely removal of waste from these Corporation bins and also a regular door-to-door collection of trash.
Article by K R Sadakshi