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The non-governmental civic body, Exnora, has once again brought to focus an issue that has
been too all often ignored by city hall, viz., solid waste landfills or to be more direct,
garbage dumps. Exnora has now gone to court complaining against the dumping of garbage on
the dry bed of a lake in the  Ambattur municipality. According to one media report, the area's residents have
complained that the municipality continues to dump at least 15 truck loads of garbage in
the lake area and without following even the most basic safety norms. Most urban Indians
would wonder what the fuss is all about, used as they are to sights of open dumps dotting
their particular city's landscape. But as a World Health Organisation (WHO) study shows
open dumping damages human health and when done near a river or lake, the subsequent
contaminating effects are felt by large sections of society.
World Bank and Swiss experts have chipped in
and prepared a summary of the study to highlight the necessity of urban areas to convert
open dumps to "controlled and sanitary landfills." As cities grow and produce
more waste…open dumping becomes increasingly intolerable, the paper says, a point
which few Chennaivasis will contest, especially as the city corporation's dumping
practices have spawned breeding grounds for mosquitoes, rats and other vermin. The
situation has become so untenable that Chennai has won the dubious honour of having the
most number of malarial cases, far outstripping any other urban or rural centre in the
state. In growing into an unwieldy, sprawling mass, Chennai has thrown up an enormous
number of health hazards, with mosquitoes vying with a host of
other insects and bacteria in their mission to reduce Chennai's population. But what are
the options if nine to ten million people will contest for space as confined as this
city's?
The WHO-World Bank study points out that
municipalities must move away from open dumping to sanitary or controlled landfills, i.e.,
sites where waste is isolated from the environment until it is safe. The study also says
that a city's planners must adopt a step-by-step method in moving away from open dumping.
A lot of planning and systematic management is required the paper says. But as a senior
official in Rippon Building points out: "We do not have the time for carrying out
usual duties, let alone for niceties like these." Thus Chennaivasis can rest
unconcerned that their city's landscape is not going to change overnight. The garbage
dumps, along street-sides, on lake/river-beds and at various other spots around, are going
to be there for a long, long time.
Ravichandran.K
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