The Times of India           14.12.2019

CHENNAI: Said to be the country’s first waste exchange platform, Greater Chennai Corporation on Friday launched www.madraswasteexchange.com that will help connect buyers and sellers of different kind of waste.

Corporation commissioner G Prakash on Friday inaugurated the website which will be run on a pilot basis for the first three months. Based on the response from public and waste recyclers, more features will be added to the website, officials said.

Through the website, members of the public too can buy recycled products from the corporation. An android app with the same name will also be up and running soon, officials said. The concept will also help the civic body fulfil its long-term goal of achieving zero waste by adopting the concept of a circular economy in waste management.

The civic body generates about 5220tonnes of waste a day. Of this, about 50% is wet waste, half of which is recycled as manure by various methods adopted by city corporation. The civic body is already providing doorstep delivery of manure and has also set up stalls in a mall too.

Efforts are on to set up three bio-incinerator plants on a public private partnership model to reduce the amount of waste going to the landfills.

“About 400tonnes of dry waste including tender coconut shells and garden waste that are collected every day will be sold to enterprises making activated charcoal, biofuel etc,” a corporation official said. The civic body also runs 64 resource recovery centres and 110 material recovery facilities in which the segregated waste collected from households are sent for recycling.

“The waste exchange website too is a step towards reducing the amount of waste that goes to the landfill. Our aim is to recover the landfills,” the official added.

While for now, only municipal solid waste will be handled through the platform, based on the response, the activity will be scaled up to include other waste like e-waste, construction and demolition waste, officials said adding it will be expanded to other smart cities in the state too.