Garbage system in Chennai:

Solid Waste Management (SWM) is one of the key functions of any municipality. It is prominent as a public health and concern of the city. The Corporation of Chennai devotes a sizable proportion of its resources, time and labour to Solid Waste Management, in spite of the hundreds of tons of waste which go uncollected daily. The slums and low income settlements finds themselves chronically under-served.

The ‘garbage problem’ has become a major issue in Chennai which affects the public health to large extend and spreads diseases. Thousands in the city are dependent on municipal solid waste for livelihood as they pick the wastes and earns by giving the wastes for recycling.

Waste-pickers, itinerant buyers and scrap dealers together forms the longstanding network across the city as the informal sector in the waste industry who is responsible for most of the recycling that happens in the city and they are also responsible for reducing the city’s carbon footprint. But the contributions of waste pickers are unrecognized and the formal systems do not provide accommodations for them and as a result they are highly vulnerable to harassment and displacement.

There are some work centres which does research on garbage system and does promotion of sustainable and solid waste management in Chennai. These work centres aims in filling gaps in knowledge and understanding about waste to the public. It involves the management and some of the actors who acknowledge the public about waste management in the cities with both qualitative and quantitative research. Their primary focus sometimes is the role and contribution of ‘waste-pickers’ or informal waste workers in the city’s waste scenario.

Mahatma Gandhi had spent a lifetime trying to encourage cleanliness, and is known for his remark, “Cleanliness is next to Godliness.” Sixty years after India’s independence, cleanliness has been a major goal again. One of the biggest problems now in Chennai is the lack of toilet infrastructure, leading to defecation in public places. This poses serious health hazards. Laws that require all houses to have toilets have been ineffective and impractical. But this also has tobe seriously taken. Therefore solid waste management and recycling has to be taken into effort and has to be practiced by the people in Chennai to make Chennai a better place to live and make it the best developed city.