Civic body says large number of condoms end up in sewage treatment plants on weekends
Civic body says large number of condoms end up in sewage treatment plants on weekendsThe city no doubt is seeing a lot of heated action. At least the screening systems in the city's nine working sewage treatment plants (STP) say so, which for some time have been facing an inflating problem, especially on weekends.
Just did it: Used condoms at Bhairoba Nala Sewage Treatment Plant run
by the PMC. pic/Vivek SabnisThe civic body is finding large number of used condoms on their screening system. These rubber chunks are then sent to the solid waste department of the civic body, where they cannot be destroyed nor recycled for other purposes.
As the sewerage water flows into the Mula, Mutha Rivers, it goes directly to the nine STPs maintained by the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) everyday. If an average 2,000 used condoms are found in each STP in the city every weekend, it adds up to 18,000 in a week. Add to that the collection on weekdays and the number reaches 20,000.
Dinesh Thakare, executive engineer of the Baner STP said that instead of disposing the used condoms by throwing it in dustbins, many people preferred to dump them in toilets, which no doubt ended up in sewerage.
"The number of used condoms tends to rise in the waste coming from the Mula and Ram Nadi to the plants during weekends. Possibly, the people on their weekend holidays find the leisure and opportunity to use condoms," Ravindra Mule, deputy engineer said.
Mule said that the condoms might have been coming from the lodges and hotels from Vakad Phata to Chandani Chowk area, via sewerage. "Throwing the used condoms in the commodes and flushing them is the easiest way to destroy evidence of illicit sex," he said.
R B Chaudhari, head of the Mundhawa STP, said: "On Saturdays, Sundays and other public holidays the number of used condoms are many. We do not have a system to separate them from the other plastic or rubber material yet. In the future, we might have to do that as an additional work and the PMC have to decide a policy on destroying the used condoms in solid waste management programme."
Suresh Jagtap, deputy Commissioner of the solid waste management department said that the total quantum of used condoms in the solid waste is in lakhs which comes from all STPs as well as from the garbage dumps in the city. "We are keeping separate tins for throwing used condoms at many places including the public toilets in the city but people hardly use them," he said.
Sanitary troubleJagtap said the sanitary pads were also unhygienic and should destroyed in incinerators with other biomedical wastes. "We are planning to formulate the policy soon on used condoms. The same is applicable to used sanitary pads," he said.
Pradeep Mule, director of Passco Environmental Solutions Pvt Ltd. who works for the PMC said that used condoms and sanitary napkins were biomedical wastes and had to be destroyed. "Rotary Clubs in the city have come forward to collect the napkins and destroy it in incinerators, but there is still no system to destroy the used condoms. In the future we may have to seek the help of Rotary clubs to dispose condoms also."
