Chennai wastelands: As trash grows, so do protests

At Perungadi, Kodungaiyur

Both Perungudi (228 acres) and Kodungaiyur (270 acres) are roughly as tall as a two-storey building. Every day, trucks bring in the city’s unsegregated refuse —construction rubble, plastic, rotting food — and make their way up the winding trail on the mountain of garbage.

Read: Wastelands of India – Here’s how metros manage their trash

The corporation claims that the landfill sites have the mandatory security set-up in place — compound walls, CCTV cameras, fire-fighting equipment and water tanks, and regularisation of ragpickers. At least 900 ragpickers work at these landfills and all of them have ID cards.

But one of the biggest challenges is to get enough private contractors on board to take over waste handling — the policy is to privatise at least 60 per cent of operations. For instance, in 2008, a private firm, Terra Firma Solid Waste Management, was selected to set up a bio-methanation plant at Kodungaiyur to generate power, but the project wasn’t cleared by the Pollution Control Board.

In 2009, Hydroair Techtonics was selected to generate energy from garbage at Kodungaiyur, but that too wasn’t cleared by the Board. In 2012, the National Green Tribunal set aside clearance to set up a waste management plant (to treat waste) at Perungudi, saying that since the plant was less than 10 km from the Guindy National Park, it would harm the animals. In February 2012, the corporation called for tenders to install an integrated waste management system in the city for recycling and to generate compost. The corporation was also hoping to find a viable solution to remove the Kodungaiyur and Perungudi dumping yards and reclaim the land, but none of these plans has moved ahead. A Kuwait-based firm that came up with a proposal to collect segregated waste through a door-to-door system also failed to take off as they reportedly quoted Rs 2,500 to clear a tonne of waste.

There used to be frequent fires at both these landfills, but the corporation claims the accident rates have been brought down considerably after standard protocols were enforced.

Another problem is of residents near the landfills complaining of pollution. Three years ago, a CPM MLA, A Soundararajan, lent his support to one such protest at the Kodungaiyur landfill by taking a house on rent near the landfill and moving in with his family. But nothing came of this protest. Recently, Soundararajan had to shift his family back to the MLA quarters after his wife fell sick.