In December 2010, Reclaim Our Beaches (ROB), a local youth initiative in the city, contacted Transparent Chennai to see if TC could, in any way, help strengthen a proposal that they were sending to the Chennai Corporation on the need for dustbins and toilets on Elliots and Valmiki beaches. A methodology for data creation was devised that would benefit both organizations. For ROB, it was the creation of spatially precise data that buttressed the need for dustbins and toilets, and for TC, it served as a starting point for infrastructure and pollution mapping of Chennai’s coastline. This blogpost will tell our readers about how the data created helped strengthen ROB’s proposal to the Chennai Corporation.

Dustbins and Toilets on the Beach:

ROB’s campaign, which involves placing dustbins and toilets on the beach as a first step towards a healthier beach environment, led them to a meeting with the Chennai Corporation, a civic body responsible for maintenance of public spaces and amenities in the city among other things. The meeting ended with the corporation suggesting that ROB submit a proposal stating the nature of problem and related demands concerning Chennai’s beaches.

While thrilled at the opportunity to come up with a sound proposal that would put dustbins and toilets on the beach they soon realized that it was not an easy task to create a convincing proposal especially since they were an unregistered organization. The need to make their proposal more persuasive was why they initially contacted TC.

TC and ROB:

At TC, a methodology was devised for obtaining information on the formal and informal uses of Elliots and Valmiki Beaches that would help ROB to: 1. help reinforce the need for dustbins and toilets; 2. provide insight into the most effective locations for the same.

How so? Let us explain by using Elliots beach as an example.

While ROB already had data on the amount of trash along the coastline, this data was repackaged to spatially showcase how dirty the beach was during different days and times. We did this by mapping sites where trash had accumulated on different days to get a spatial sense of the problem. In our study, a trash accumulation site was defined as any area where more than 5 pieces of trash were found together.

These sites were mapped by ROB volunteers on Monday 20/11/2010

These sites were mapped by ROB volunteers on Sunday 02/01/2011

As you can see, these maps provide a strong spatial representation of the problem of trash on Elliots beach. What’s even better is by overlaying this data with the existing neelmetal dumpsters and government operated dustbins in the area, one can easily see how the present waste management system is inadequate.

Similar representations of informal urine hotspots were mapped and overlaid with information of public toilet facilities in the area to present the need for more toilets.

To help in locating ideal places for trash bins a heat map containing a point density algorithm was used to spatially show the most concentrations of trash thereby showing where trash bins would be most useful.

Example heat map using the trash accumulation data obtained on 20/11/2010

The same methodology was used to stress the need for toilets as well. We hope that these maps will help ROB’s proposal to the Corporation and eventually result in more dustbins and toilets on the beach.

Go to Build A Map feature on our website to explore our Beach Layer! Please do write to us and give us feedback on our methodology.

- Siddharth Hande

This post in an excerpt from a Media Voice Magazine article on Chennai’s SWM crisis. Read more in the March issue of Media Voice Magazine.

The informal sector in SWM refers to scavengers and rag pickers that are involved in the extraction of reusable and recyclable materials from unsegregated waste. The work of this group is labor-intensive, low-paid and unregulated. The informal sector intervenes at several points of the SWM system. This includes iterant waste buyers that collect waste door-to-door, street-level waste pickers and dump site workers. Most Indian metros have large populations of rag pickers. Chintan, a New Delhi-based NGO, estimates that the city has close to 300,000 rag pickers who retrieve around 1,000 tons of waste a day from the municipal cycle – around 20% of Delhi’s daily garbage that would otherwise make its way into dump yards.

About a decade ago, Chennai’s SWM network included thousands of waste pickers, who scavenged for raw materials from dust bins, road sides, dump sites and transfer stations. This sector has shrunk to a great degree in recent years due to reasons which can be attributed to privatization of SWM and a general disregard for rag pickers by the CoC. In 2000, Chennai became the first Indian city to hire a private agency to fulfill part of its SWM duties. Onyx used a large work force, compactors and other facilities to clear garbage, and thus left rag pickers with limited access to waste. Furthermore, in order to comply with the SWM Rules, the CoC constructed compound walls around Perungudi and Kodungaiyur dump yards, as well as its transfer stations and set up security personnel to guard these sites. Rag pickers, who used to retrieve recyclables in these sites, now have very limited access to them. Many have to pay bribes or undergo harassment in order to enter these places.

A rag picker settlement adjacent to the Kodungaiyur dump yard in Chennai.

Kodungaiyur is one of two major dump sites in the city of Chennai. This 350-acre site receives around 1500 tonnes of garbage a day. It is also home to over 2000 rag pickers, who live in shacks behind the site. With the main entrance guarded by security and the site walled off, rag pickers only have access to waste from the back entrance of the site. Dubeda, in this photo, is a rag picker who lives in this settlement and only collects remnants of shoes. She says that many rag pickers specialize in retrieving specific raw materials, such as glass, paper, plastic, etc. She has been involved in this profession ever since she lost her husband 14 years ago. Rag picking is her main profession, without with she has no source of income. Also seen in this picture is Dubeda’s young daughter, who will be helping her out with waste picking in a few years.

Vijay Anand, a social worker with Exnora, stresses on the importance of resource recovery and estimates that only 5% of our absolute waste would end up in landfills with proper recycling and segregation. He explains that the informal sector is an integral cog to the SWM system, without which resource recovery is extremely low. Accommodations must be made at the policy-making level to recognize the importance of their work and include them within the formal SWM system. Almitra Patel of the Supreme Court committee for SWM recently urged the CoC to formally employ rag pickers to clean up the city. She estimates that waste that is source segregated could potentially earn Chennai up to 1 crore rupees a month. Unfortunately, the CoC is apprehensive about hiring informal sector workers to do corporation jobs due to their nomadic lifestyles, lack of stability, and because they do not possess identification material, such as ration cards and birth certificates.

- Vaishnavi Narasimhan

Akshai Abraham

This week, we have added a new module to the site which allows users to search and download documents related to Chennai. We have painstakingly collected these documents over a period of 14 months from various sources including visits to various libraries and government offices, filing RTIs, and searches in the public domain. We are still in the process of cataloging our repository of documents and also digitizing various datasets from paper form to usable formats. We hope that at these documents will be of use to concerned citizens who wish to know more about the planning of their city.

We have also recently uploaded a layer on Solid Waste Management (Garbage Infrastructure) on our maps section as well as an online polling feature and registration to our mailing list on our blog section. Stay tuned and do keep checking in.

Some quick usage stats from Google Analytics:

Though this site has been live and attracting users for over 6 months, we revamped the site and launched on the 4^th of October. Since that date, we have had over 11,000 visits (in about 50 days). About 8850 of these are unique visits (new users) These 8000+ users have spent an average of approximately 5 minutes on the site and there have been over 53,600 page views! Considering the niche segment the site caters to (citizens concerned about one particular city in India), these are very heartening statistics.

 Picture 1: Around 80 per cent of the hits to the site came from new users.

In terms of sources of traffic, we have attracted quite a lot of international visitors (Picture 2) with hits from 65 countries. The USA, Singapore, UAE and UK top the list of international visits by country.

Picture 2

Within India (Picture 3), we have had the highest number of visits from Chennai (obviously) followed by Bangalore, Coimbatore, Mumbai, Thanjavur, Erode and Hyderabad.

Picture 3: A lot of hits from Chennai

It has been a while since I last blogged. I could not find an appropriate topic to blog about. Moreover, the team has been blogging regularly about latest events and updates, so I waited till I was adequately inspired to put down my thoughts in words. Today seems to be the day. As I sit at home enjoying the long weekend, I can’t help but think about Transparent Chennai, and the team’s dream to make it a citizens-led platform. Each and every member of our team has an aspiration for this polluted and crowded yet strikingly beautiful city of Chennai. After the successful launch of our website, our aspirations and dreams look slightly more realistic and achievable. By asking our users to contribute, we have moved one step closer to our dream. There is this one thought that keeps the team going – ‘What if Transparent Chennai succeeds in its endeavor to empower its citizens?’ While that remains a question to be answered in due time, one might wonder who the real master minds are behind the project.

I would call them the men ‘behind the scenes’. Prabu Raja from the tech team, without whom our mapping project would have been impossible, says “I am very fond of mapping and work towards improving the technology for development. I want to leverage my skills to reach out to the citizens by allowing them to view data on exciting and easy-to-understand maps.” When asked about the city, Prabu tells me, “I hate traffic jams and I feel sad about slum dwellers living close to Cooum who suffer the most when Chennai gets flooded during incessant rains. Chennai in my dreams would be a city where all these issues have been taken care of.” Muthukumaran, who sits right next to Prabu, shares similar thoughts. “I really enjoy working on this project because the very idea that I can reach out to Chennai’s residents through this medium excites me,” says Muthu. “I only hope that people appreciate this project and come forward to join us in this modest effort of ours to change Chennai for the better.” Muthu is the man behind the interesting design of the website which has evolved over time  to become more user-friendly and catchy.

Meryl Mary Sebastian, our longest standing intern, leads a hapless life as she goes around from one zonal office to the other searching for mapable data. She might be the youngest member in our team but don’t you underestimate her skills to gather and organize data. “This project introduced me to ideas of how and what a city could be. I love that we are creating a space for information that will empower and encourage the citizens of Chennai to participate in the planning and shaping of their city,” says our intern. All that she aspires for is a ‘clean and green Chennai!’ Our newest member Vaishnavi Narasimhan has been on a roll ever since she joined the project. When questioned, she gives a curt reply – “I would like to see more trees and less garbage.” Vaishnavi has been traveling to each and every place in the city where one can find heaps of garbage. If you are a resident of Chennai, you would know that her task is practically endless. She also loves chatting up with groups and organizations and has been crucial in getting the project its due publicity.  We have one another Muthu working from home, who is invisible even to the team, but his work speaks for him. Whenever we have a problem of transferring data to the GIS platform, we look towards Muthu for solutions. His data cleaning work involves a lot of patience and time, and the team in its entirety was really happy to meet him during the launch of TC!

There have been 10 more interns for this project from different parts of the world who came and worked with us because they found the project interesting and exciting. All these members are invisible to the citizens we reach out to, but they are undoubtedly the real face of this project. Three cheers to all of you out there. Of course, there is something about this project that brings us all together – this project is about how we can make each and every day of our lives better. The website has massive potential which can be realized when more, and eventually all of us, come together and realize our duty to voice our opinions as informed and empowered residents of Chennai. Imagine- One day all of you MIGHT have enough walking space in Chennai, an excellent public transport which takes you to your destination in no time, a flyover which serves its very purpose, pollution free roads and parks, a clean and hygienic place to pee whenever you feel like and not having to hold it till you reach home, door to door collection of garbage and no mountains of smelly filth strewn around the streets of Chennai! Nobody but you can change this ‘MIGHT’ to ‘WILL’. We have already taken a number of steps towards getting closer to our dream and probably yours as well, but the rest is your responsibility.

Contact us immediately!

Posted by Somya Sethuraman

Do you ever wonder where all your trash ends up? We throw tons of garbage into our trash cans everyday and completely forget about it. It seems to magically disappear out of our homes and we never have to deal with it again. At least, that’s what I thought until I went on a “Garbage Yatra’ all across north Chennai.

As one of Transparent Chennai’s initiatives, I went about looking for dump sites all over north Chennai. Mr. Paramanandam, a very knowledgeable field worker from Exnora, was gracious enough to take me around the city to examine the solid waste management situation. Paramanandam explained that there are four steps to disposal of garbage. The first step is Primary Collection, which involves picking up garbage from each doorstep on every street. Smaller vehicles are used for easier accessibility. These vehicles assemble at a collection point where they transfer the garbage to larger vehicles. Garbage is then taken to transfer stations and temporarily placed at these locations. A transfer station is a site used for the temporary deposition of garbage, before it is transported to a larger landfill. Gargage in Chennai is taken to one of 8 transfer stations. Each zone is assigned a particular transfer station. Garbage from all of the transfer stations then taken to one of two major dump sites in Chennai – Kodungaiyur in the north and Perungudi in the South. However, I learned on the field trip that there are several other unofficial dump sites all over the city, apart from Kodungiyur and Perungudi.

Paramanandam explained to me that solid waste management in the city is a huge disaster. The problem arises because of Chennai’s large population and sizable floating population, consisting of traders and workers traveling in and out of the city on a daily basis. Chennai churns out around 3500 tonnes of garbage each day. The Chennai city corporation clears our around 65% of this garbage everyday, but is unable to handle the rest due to lack of man power and facilities. Additionally, residents fail to comply with garbage pick-up times, by not putting out their garbage before 7:30am, as per the Corporation’s schedule. Hence, the remaining 35% of garbage ends up along road sides, in water bodies and even storm water drains. Thus, residents of Chennai are posed which a host of serious problems, such as mosquitoes, ground water pollution, diseases and flooding.

Our first stop was the Basin Bridge Transfer station. I couldn’t help but notice the putrid air around us as soon as we got close to the transfer station. There was a large slum across the street from the transfer station. The slum dwellers, I was told, use the station as a public toilet everyday, making living conditions around the area worse than it already is. I was warned against taking pictures or notes conspicuously at the transfer station. I noticed a few trucks going in and out of the station, carrying mounds of garbage. I was told that all of this garbage is taken to the dump yard un-segregated. Though small efforts have been made at separating degradable and non-degradable garbage, the corporation does not have the resources or the willingness to handle this effectively and ends up mixing the garbage together before transferring it to the dump yards.

After basin bridge, we drove along the harbor on Raypuram Beach Road in north Chennai. The beauty of the harbor was marred by islands of garbage all along the coast. We then drove up to Ennur and stopped at the Ennur thermal power station. Every so often, I would notice small bodies of water along the side of the road covered with water lilies and other beautiful vegetation. Most of them were either entirely covered with garbage or were on their way to becoming unofficial dump sites. Paramanandam explained, that water bodies are often the first place where industrial wastes get dumped. The highly industrialized northern part of Chennai suffers from severe ground and surface water pollution.

We continued on to a few municipalities and town panchayats in north Chennai. Most of north Chennai seemed to be underdeveloped with respect to infrastructure and urban development. Garbage in each of these local bodies is managed separately from the corporation. There was a common theme to all of these municipalities and panchayats – poor waste management. Garbage seemed to be everywhere, blanketing ponds and lakes, and burning in mounds on the side of the road.

The climax of our trip was the visit to the 360-acre Kodungiyur dump yard – one of two huge official dumpsites in Chennai, where half of Chennai’s garbage ends up. I could smell the stench at this site well before we got close to it. The yard was enclosed by a large wall that extended far and wide to hide the awful site that lay within. Unfortunately, I was strictly forbidden from taking pictures. I took a quick peak into the yard and saw huge mountains of garbage for miles. The weight of the garbage that is dumped by each truck is measured before it goes into the yard. New garbage is constantly dumped over existing garbage, and no initiatives are taken to clear the old garbage and rehabilitate the dump site.

One of our last stops was the Koyambedu market dump, which is a large, unofficial dump site that is not handled by the Chennai corporation or any municipalities or panchayats. This dump sites houses all of the degradable waste that comes out of one of Asia’s largest perishable goods markets. Paramanandam described this waste as “good garbage,” because it could be composted and used to produce energy. However, it rots in a large ground at the moment.

Koyembedu Market

The Koyambedu Market dump

The field trip showed me that the trash that we throw out does not disappear out of our lives, but affects us every day by befouling our roads, polluting air and water, causing diseases and, finally, destroying the beauty of our city. According to Paramanandam, the first step to better solid waste management is for residents to say no to garbage. A few tips that he gave me were to carry your own bag when you go grocery shopping and avoid using plastic bags, buy items with minimal packaging, avoid purchasing disposable items, reuse items such as plastic or glass bottles, newspaper, etc, recycle, and compost your kitchen waste.

Written by Vaishnavi Narasimhan