Despite the Chennai City Corporation issuing notices to establishments like apartment complexes and hotels to compost all the garbage they produce in their own premises, the restaurants seem to have no intent to follow the new rules, according to a report on the Times of India.
Officials from Chennai corporation allege that there has been very little co-operation from the restaurants for the new rules.
Tamil Nadu Hotels Association Secretary R Raj Kumar asked TOI why should they be composting waste within their hotels when the city corporation collects a fee for handling waste before they are issued a trade license. He also added that a compost yard within a hotel will turn away customers.
He said that categorising restaurants as a bulk waste generator was “unwise”. He claimed that restaurants do not generate more than 100 kg of waster every day. Due to increase in prices of raw materials, they have reduced the wastage drastically.
Sources from corporation told ToI that big apartment complexes, corporate firms and luxury hotels have showed interest in composting waste within their premises, but very little of the interest had actually materialised into positive action.
Last month, The Chennai Corporation had issued notices to all these establishments, including marriage halls. The New Indian Express reported that the main aim behind this move was to reduce the garbage which is transferred to long distances, which often leads to it becoming stinking, putrefied organic matter by the time it reaches the dump yard.
The corporation asked the apartment complexes to compost the waste using mechanised shredding and composting assembly units which would cost about Rs. 17 lakhs for a fully automated unit.
A corporation official told TNIE that a 4×5 feet will be enough for the apartment complexes to carry out composting.
Source: The News Minute