COIMBATORE: In an innovative initiative, Kittampalayam village panchayat has constructed a public bus shelter using only plastic sheets. Almost two tonnes of plastic waste collected from households within the panchayat limits was used for the construction.
Kittampalayam is the second village panchayat in Coimbatore district to introduce public facilities made from plastic waste, after Kaniyur village panchayat.
“The bus shelter, located at the four-cornered junction of Kittampalayam, was created entirely with plastic sheets. The roof, covering walls, floor and seating arrangements were built using 1,908 kg of waste collected from the villages of Kittampalayam, Vadugapalayam, Kulathupalayam and Vinoba Nagar. With this initiative, we are proving to the public that proper segregation of waste can have multiple benefits,” said VMC Chandrasekar, president of Kittampalayam panchayat.
The panchayat administration ensures door-to-door collection and segregation of waste at the recycling facility, where sanitation workers separate compostable and non-compostable waste. Biodegradable waste is used for the manufacture of manure, which in turn is spread on the three hectares of agricultural land owned by the village panchayat. “The vegetables we grow here are sold to the residents at low prices,” says Chandrasekar.
The civic body also has plans to recycle plastic waste and has partnered with Recompose Recycling Private Ltd, a private company with expertise in waste segregation that is already operating in 12 villages in the district. The company had earlier constructed a plastic waste room at the Kaniyur village panchayat office.
The company’s director, C Prashanth, said such designs are the best way to recycle Multi-Layer Pack (MLP) plastic, which is low-grade thin plastic used to pack food products like biscuits, chocolates and spices. “This plastic is not preferred for recycling and ends up in landfills. When we got hold of a huge volume of such plastics, we proposed to use them to build the bus shelter.
The waste was processed into sheets after being crushed and compacted. Above all, we produced the result in three different forms – roofing sheets that look like asbestos sheets, stone blocks for the floor and regular sheets for side walls and seats,” he said.
Kittampalayam panchayat with a population of about 6,000 collects about 600 kg of waste daily, of which at least 200 kg is plastic. About 20% of this waste is sorted as MLP. “We are now planning to build more bus shelters using plastic,” Chandrasekar added.
