Chennai, June 14(BPNS)
With the state providing relaxations to lockdown norms starting Monday in 27 districts, the sanitary workers will be having a heavy workload when compared to the lockdown period.
However what worries most of the Sanitary workers of the state are carelessly disposed off face masks rather than the workload they have to bear. In commercial streets across several cities of the state, the sanitary workers have to clear the face masks which were strewn or thrown away mindlessly.
Manimekhalai(Name Changed), a sanitary worker with the Madurai corporation while speaking to BPNS said, “Workload is not an issue for me but the masks which are thrown across the street is causing real fear in me and umpteen sanitary workers and we don’t know how we can clear these masks. I am sure that this will lead to a major catastrophe as face masks thrown in the road will turn into a spreader. We have already petitioned the corporation to do something and expecting a positive result from them.”
A similar or much worse situation is being faced by the sanitation workers in Chennai corporation. Even though the corporation has conducted several awareness programmes as to how the face masks are to be disposed of or kept, people used to throw them off mindlessly and this is posing a real health hazard for the general public and the sanitation workers in particular.
Raghunathan S, a sanitation worker in Chennai Corporation while speaking to BPNS said, “I am afraid of these face masks being littered across the roads. I am aware of the danger posed by it but people are still acting as if they are not aware. The Tamil Nadu health department as well as the corporation has conducted several awareness programs on how to dispose of face masks but still, people are behaving in a careless manner posing a severe danger to the health of people like us. Hope corporation will bring up a solution to this issue.”
With the shops and establishments including TASMAC shops opened from Monday onwards, there could be a higher percentage of the face masks being thrown recklessly and carelessly across the streets of the state.
