Civic body to set up bottle booths at prime points

Thiruvananthapuram: In a move aimed at tackling the plastic bottle menace, the civic body will set up bottle booths at prime points in the city. The plan is to establish one booth at every 100 metres at bus stops, tourist centres, parks and other places where people gather to collect bottles. A ward will have five to six bootle booths.“An agency will be entrusted with the task of periodic collection of bottles from these booths. We will call for an expression of interest (EoI) to engage an agency. The rate at which bottle waste will be collected will be decided after the publication of EoI,” a project official said.There was a court directive on the need to establish bottle collection points in the city. Unscrupulous dumping of bottles in stormwater drains and canals often leads to clogging, and during heavy showers, this clogged drainage network resulted in flooding in many places.The civic body is also making use of funds from the Smart City project to broaden the scope of this scheme. This will enable the city corporation to set up over 100 bottle booths in the city. The bottle booths are being introduced a year after the health standing committee had decided to do away with the dry waste collection hubs in the city.The dry waste collection hub at Sasthamangalam was launched by former mayor V K Prasanth in 2019. Introduced as an innovative model, the hub was built with separate chambers to deposit different kinds of dry waste. It mainly aimed at making the city residents and the floating population responsible of handling the dry waste they generate.According to corporation officials, the dry waste hubs deterred the effort of the civic body to promote the deployment of Haritha Karma Sena workers in the city. Spurred by the success of the hub at Sasthamangalam, city corporation had launched the second collection point near University College, at Palayam. Old clothes, broken glass, plastic, metals, cans and waste paper could be deposited in separate chambers in the dry waste collection hub. Staff were deployed for the dry waste collection hub which was meant to function for 24 hours.Dry waste collection hubs were envisaged to cater to the needs of people during travel who are otherwise forced to abandon waste in public places. The corporation had also offered attractive prizes for those who deposited dry waste in the hub and upload selfies on Smart Trivandrum mobile app.