Kochi city will witness a flurry of cleanliness drives in the coming days with the Kochi Corporation planning a cleanliness drive, and Suchitwa Mission launching an awareness programme for managing non-degradable waste.
The civic authority has already removed around 2,500 flex boards from public places, including the ones put up by the political parties and religious organisations. The campaign, which was launched 10 days ago, will move to the next phase later this week when unauthorised publicity materials displayed in private holdings will be removed, said Tony Chammany, Kochi Mayor.
The deadline for the voluntary removal of such publicity materials will end on Tuesday. After that, the six squads of the local body, with the support of police, would enter private buildings and holdings to remove the materials displayed illegally, Mr. Chammany said.
Civic administrators led by the Mayor will clean up the main office premises of the Kochi Corporation on November 1. Councillors and other administrative officials will clean up the zonal offices of the local body on the day.
The Kudumbarsee and Community Development Society members will involve themselves in a big way in ensuring that the city is kept clean. The residents associations and other welfare groups will also be brought in to the campaign to ensure that the cleaning operations sustain in their respective areas, Mr. Chammany said.
Suchitwa Mission driveThe Suchitwa mission will launch an awareness programme in the city on Monday to improve the collection and management of non-degradable refuses.
Huge quantities of non-degradable refuses with toxic content like mercury were being carelessly dumped. This would cause serious health hazards, pointed out Dr. K. Vasuki, Executive Director of the Mission.
She said there was a huge market out there for the non-degradable materials which could be recycled. The traders in reusable materials needed to be provided clean materials. The non-degradable materials should to be stored and collected separately for preventing them from being soiled. The traders dealing with such refuses also need space in local areas for the sorting and packing the discards collected from various households, she said. It is estimated that Kochi city churns out around 120 tonnes of non-degradable refuse a day, including damaged electronic goods, plastic, discarded furniture and metal.
