How a municipal dump yard in Coonoor was transformed into a flower garden

A Coonoor-based civil society group took over the town’s solid waste management five years ago, transforming the open municipal dump yard into a resource recovery centre. A garden now flourishes where the dump yard once stood, aiming to break the stigma around waste as something to be avoided. At the facility, waste is segregated and processed, producing 50 tonnes of compost from wet waste each month. This compost is sold in the market, including to the horticulture department which distributes it to farmers for free. This report is by Arathi Menon

A manicured garden with blooming flowers is arguably the last thing one would associate with a municipal dump yard. Yet, a 10,000 sq ft garden skirts Coonoor town’s solid waste management centre at Ottupattarai. “We thought of a garden to break the stigma around waste. The thought that it’s unsightly and needs to be avoided has to change,” says Samantha Iyanna, one of the founders of Clean Coonoor, a Coonoor-based civil society group that runs the facility.

The garden, featuring 40 perennials, over 30 annuals, and native grasses, was established five years ago adjacent to the five-hectare dump yard. It has won the well-known Ooty flower show competition in the Nilgiris District of Tamil Nadu consecutively for the past three years. Half a hectare of land near the garden is used for eco-restoration with native grass. The garden, grown on compost made at the dump yard, attracts many visitors daily. The visitors inadvertently take home the message that waste is a personal responsibility and that not all waste needs to be trashed; some can be put to good use.

From garbage to garden
In 2019, Clean Coonoor undertook the gargantuan task of cleaning up a legacy landfill on top of a hill and managing the municipal waste. Until then, Samantha says, waste was collected door-to-door by the municipality and dumped in the open landfill. “The heap of waste kept catching fire due to the heat generated inside. It was all a big mess,” adds Dr Vasanthan Panchavarnam, a physician who is part of Clean Coonoor and now manages the day-to-day activities of the solid waste management centre. Like many other hill towns in India with high tourist footfall, Coonoor grapples with a significant solid waste management problem. The daily municipal waste is around 5.6 tonnes of solid waste and 8-10 tonnes of wet waste from 12,000 households, accommodating a population of around 45,000, excluding tourists.

During an earlier trip to Kodaikanal, another hill town in Tamil Nadu, Mongabay met waste management expert Rajamanickam, who posed a thought-provoking question: how many of us pay attention to the waste we generate and its management as closely as we do to the nutrition label on our food packets? If one is essential for our personal health, the other is crucial for the health of the environment. Most of us are concerned only about our health and consider our waste entirely a governmental responsibility. In reality, individuals can contribute significantly to waste management, he had said. This is exemplified by Dr Panchavarnam and Samantha, the two main players of the civil society group that is transforming the waste management scene in Coonoor.

Big trash problem
Before Clean Coonoor took over the municipal solid waste management facility in Ottupattarai in 2019, 13 metric tonnes of waste – about two times the weight of an elephant – were being openly dumped in the yard every day. With no standard operating procedures in place, around 12,000 cubic feet of unprocessed waste had piled up. Samantha reminisces that Clean Coonoor had long wanted to address this situation. Serendipity played a part, and before long, the Coonoor Municipality handed over a part of the responsibility to the organisation. “The door-to-door waste collection and transportation are still done by the municipality, which sends its trucks. We process the waste,” she shares.

Coonoor town has been making efforts to manage its waste for quite some time. In 2016, the town went entirely bin-less after noticing that animals were being attracted to the bins. Later in 2018, plastic PET (polyethylene terephthalate) bottles, except for five-litre water bottles, were banned. “We did a clean-up of the town in 2018 and recovered 300 tonnes of plastic bottles alone, which prompted the authorities to enforce the ban,” says Samantha. The ban on bins strengthened door-to-door collection of waste. Residents were encouraged to segregate their waste into dry and wet categories, a practice that continues to this day. “Despite segregation at source, mixing happened in the truck. It happens even now, but the drivers are more mindful after we started processing the waste properly,” Samantha explains.

Waste segregation
At the resource recovery centre, dry waste is segregated into five groups: paper, plastic, metals, glass, and clothes (including sanitary waste). While paper, metals, and glass are recycled, plastic is further segregated into high-value and low-value categories. Samantha notes that high-value plastic, such as grocery packaging, has a market and fetches the centre good revenue. However, low-value plastic, mostly in the form of biscuit and chips packaging, is difficult to process. “They are burnt in certain cement factories for fuel. Pyrolysis is another option. We send them to an organisation called Pyrogreen in Ranipet for pyrolysis,” she adds. Waste cloths, mattresses, sanitary waste, etc are burnt in a fuel-less burner at the facility.

Wet waste, explains Dr Panchavarnam, goes through a thorough process. First, it is manually segregated to remove any plastic or non-compostable materials and then pulverised. It is heaped and occasionally turned for windrow composting. Afterward, it is left to mature and dry before being packed and is ready for sale. “We sell most of this compost to individuals, private farms and the district horticulture department, which gives it to farmers for free,” notes Dr Panchavarnam. “We generate 50 tonnes of compost per month,” he adds.

The facility employs 40 workers, most of them women, with two exclusively dedicated to taking care of the garden. The centre, run on donations from various funding organisations, individuals, and CSR funds, recovers one-third of its costs through the sale of compost and high-value waste. While the aim is to function independently in the future, they acknowledge that this may not be possible soon. “Right now, we are focusing on strengthening our operations. Later, we will consider expanding the scope and conducting awareness programmes. Most importantly, we want to improve the quality of waste. The next step would be to increase the volume,” shares Dr Panchavarnam.

Currently, they are also working on engaging school children. “We invite schools to bring their students and get them acquainted with the process. They should know what their waste is and where it is going. It may bring about a positive change in them,” says Samantha.

(Courtesy: Mongabay India/ india.mongabay.com.)