Rain-soaked Deepavali firecracker waste poses challenge to Corporation workers in Erode

Conservancy workers clearing firecracker waste accumulated during Deepavali in Erode on November 9, 2026 | Photo Credit: M. Govarthan Rain-soaked firecracker debris sticking to road surfaces has made clearance difficult for Corporation conservancy workers in Erode following Deepavali celebrations on Sunday (November 8, 2026), forcing them to scrape and collect the waste manually.According to the 2011 Census, Erode city has a population of 4.98 lakh spread across 109.52 sq. km. It has 60 wards in four zones, with 1,69,912 residential properties and 27,386 commercial establishments. More than 1,200 conservancy workers are engaged in solid waste management across the city every day.Discarded cracker boxes, cardboard, plastic wrappers, paper remnants and empty sweet packets were littered roads in several wards on Monday (November 9). Waste was also dumped in open drains and at road corners, while heaps of discarded material were burnt in some places.Unlike household waste collected door-to-door, cracker debris is scattered across streets and has to be swept, gathered and loaded into vehicles, adding to the workers’ routine workload of waste collection and segregation.Drenched cardboard and cracker remnants stick to road surfaces, making them difficult to sweep away. “The rain has drenched the cracker waste and cardboard, which now stick to the roads. We have to collect the waste by hand, besides sweeping the streets and loading it into vehicles,” said a conservancy worker.Another worker at Sampath Nagar said it would have been easier if residents had dumped the waste at a common location instead of scattering it across the roads. Workers said the quantity of cracker waste was lower than in previous years, but its scattered nature made collection laborious. They estimated that clearing the streets would take a few days.A senior Corporation official said post-Deepavali waste could add 10% to 15% to the usual municipal waste generation. Workers were also clearing debris from drains to prevent blockages during the rains. Published - November 09, 2026 04:37 pm IST