The picturesque Madikeri town, which soothes the senses, scores low in the handling of its solid waste.
Madikeri City Municipal Council (CMC) which had succeeded in its door-to-door garbage collection has failed miserably in disposing of the waste scientifically.
On the directions of Madikeri CMC, the garbage collected from all 23 wards in Madikeri is dumped in a landfill site at Stonehill. Huge heaps of garbage have nearly covered the entire hilly range leaving the public seething with rage.
The water flowing from the dump yard is emanating a foul smell and causing inconvenience to residents of Subrahmanya Nagara, police quarters and Ashoknagar.
The wastewater from the landfill site is also polluting wells in the low-lying areas and other sources of surface water.
Sources in the CMC said plans had been chalked out to dispose of the garbage scientifically.
Accordingly, six acres of land was identified as a landfill site. To convert the garbage into compost, machinery was procured and installed. However, this machinery which is lying defunct had failed to convert the garbage into compost. With the CMC ignoring the scientific disposal of garbage, the problem had aggravated, complained residents.
Chandan, a resident of Gowlibeedi, said that the CMC collects a fee for door-to-door collection of garbage. The amount collected was set aside for achieving cent per cent sanitation.
“If authorities do not pay attention to the scientific disposal of garbage, the problem will snowball into a huge disaster,” warns Chandan.
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