08-07-2025
Vadodara's garbage piles to soon smell like lemon!
Vadodara: If you can't clean it, just perfume it! Instead of clearing the heaps of rotting garbage that filled the city with an unbearable stench, the Vadodara Municipal Corporation (VMC) decided to crush the odour by spraying fragrant powder on it.
The civic body planned to procure nearly 44,000 kg of powder with a lemon fragrance, which it expected to provide some succour to citizens already battling potholed roads and strained backs. Officials said the powder, Orgo Fresh, is not toxic, and if inhaled or consumed by animals, it does not have any effects like gamaxine or other disinfectant powders.
VMC has been using disinfectant powders and lime powder to ensure pathogens did not grow on the sides of roads and places where garbage was dumped.
This time, the civic body decided to add a dash of lemon fragrance after experiments following the flood last year were successful.
"The solid waste transfer sites in Mujmahuda and Gadheda Market near Kishanwadi were smelling bad. The powder was sprinkled on them and showed good results," said Smit Ardeshna, Chairman of the Public Works Committee that cleared the proposal.
For each zone of the municipal corporation, 10,000 kg of the powder is being ordered.
The demand was made by officials from some zones, after which the civic body decided to procure the powder for all four zones in the city. The powder will be provided by an agency at a rate of Rs 37 per kg, and the total quantity will cost Rs 14.8 lakh. The powder was first tried at two locations in the city after the floods last year.
"We used disinfectant powders, but they cannot take care of the stench like this powder," said VMC Executive Engineer Rajendra Vasava, who also heads the central stores department that ordered the powder. The air freshener powder, however, will not be a replacement for the disinfectant powders as it cannot kill pathogens.
