Chennai is clearing an estimated 650 tonnes of firecracker waste left across the city after Deepavali, with the Greater Chennai Corporation reporting that around 200 tonnes has been removed and another 450 tonnes is targeted for collection in the coming days.
The civic body has deployed an additional 600 sanitation workers and 350 vehicles across its zones to accelerate the operation, according to a release issued by the Corporation. The cleanup has been slowed by rainfall, which has caused wet firecracker residue to stick to road surfaces and made removal more difficult for sanitation workers.
The Greater Chennai Corporation has distributed 30,000 specialised bags, each with a capacity of 50 kg, for the separate collection of firecracker waste. The material collected through the drive will be transported to a dedicated processing facility in Gummidipoondi for disposal using scientific methods, the civic body said.
The scale of the cleanup highlights the operational burden created when post-festival waste enters the public sanitation system in concentrated volumes. Firecracker residue requires separate handling under the Corporation’s current arrangements, rather than being mixed with regular household garbage. The civic body has therefore sought to keep the material within a designated collection process.
The Corporation said public response to its earlier appeals to segregate firecracker waste and place it in separate bags had been lower than anticipated. It has asked residents to keep firecracker waste separate from regular household waste and hand it directly to conservancy workers during collection.
Residents have also been urged not to dump the waste on roads or in public spaces. The request is particularly significant while rain is affecting the cleanup, since residue deposited on road surfaces can become wet and harder to remove. The Corporation said resident cooperation was essential to maintaining a clean and hygienic city.
The civic body’s operation combines additional personnel, vehicles, dedicated bags and specialised processing. Its immediate target is to remove the remaining 450 tonnes in the coming days, while ensuring that the collected material reaches the processing facility in Gummidipoondi for safe disposal.