Corp engages new firm for legacy waste removal at cheaper rate

Thiruvananthapuram: With the Clean Kerala Company Limited failing to clear the legacy waste piling up in material recovery centres, the city corporation has decided to rope in a new agency to remove it. The council meeting that met the other day has approved the agenda of the health standing committee to entrust the removal of legacy waste with Greenworms Waste Management Pvt Ltd. The new private firm will remove the legacy waste at a cost of Rs 6.40 per kg. Clean Kerala Company had agreed to remove the legacy waste at a cost of Rs 10 with an additional 8%GST. The latest decision by the council is expected to be economical for the city corporation as the agency has agreed to collect the waste at a much lesser rate.The health standing committee pointed out in the agenda that approximately two tonnes of legacy waste are piled up in 100 wards. The city corporation doesn’t have the required space to store this much quantity of legacy waste. Although letters were repeatedly issued to Clean Kerala Company regarding the removal of legacy waste, no action was taken, the agenda pointed out.The city corporation has been able to extend the services of Haritha Karma Sena across the wards in the past one year. This has resulted in a huge inflow of legacy waste to material collection facilities.The council meeting held in 2021 had approved the agenda to enter into an agreement with Clean Kerala Company for the collection of legacy waste left over from non-recyclable waste which doesn’t have any takers. The agreement with Clean Kerala Company was executed for collection of thermocol and rexine waste at Rs 10 per kg along with other kinds of waste like leather, rubber sandals, bags, furniture and plastic.The health standing committee has already approved the decision to have two agencies on zone based collection systems for transportation of plastic waste and leather waste. The agency was engaged mainly to handle legacy waste like thermocol and rexine.The city corporation had earlier mulled over co-processing of non-recyclable plastic waste and had tapped the possibilities of supply of alternate fuel in cement industry to deal with soaring quantity of non-recyclable plastic, used mattresses and other kinds of solid waste which are neither recycled nor subjected to composting. The civic body had finalized the proposal to supply such solid waste which could be converted into refuse derived fuel in cement kilns. Two firms based in Tamil Nadu had expressed interest in the project. It was even decided to supply the rejects at a cost of Rs 5,500 per tonne, however the project did not take off.