Green tri-cycles trundles down the commercial streets in Pallavaram, picking up waste from shops every four hours to be transported to a secondary segregation unit less than a kilometre away. Here 14 workers are engaged in sorting recyclables into different categories, and the biodegradable waste is separated for composting.For the last one week, shops in this busy neighbourhood, there are 650 as per data, are getting used to an attendance system where they are marked based on a few criteria including if they handed over segregated waste.
From the households, waste is picked twice a day
St. Thomas Mount-cum-Pallavaram Cantonment Board has engaged the service of Vellore-based C. Srinivasan to adopt the Solid and Liquid Resource Management (SLRM) concept to strengthen the waste collection and segregation system in the neighbourhood that extends from Le Royal Meridian Hotel to the Pallavaram bus stop.Dubbed the “Vellore Model” or the SLRM Project, here greater emphasis is laid on dispatching waste within 12 hours so that it can be converted into a resource. The collection interval increases depending on the nature of waste generated and the location. For hotels, restaurants, marriage halls, road side vendors, the workers are required to collect the waste every six hours; bulk generators such as markets every four hours; and for shops selling non-vegetarian items three hours is the duration.
