THRISSUR: Instead of decentralised arrangements for the treatment and processing of waste by Local Self-help Groups in each district, a centralised processing arrangement for a few districts or for each district was mooted by Thrissur District Collector V K Baby. He presented the idea at the meeting of Thrissur Mayor, Chairmen and Secretaries of municipalities and concerned officials held at the Collectorate here the other day. The participants welcomed the idea. The Collector said that the preliminary sorting of the waste should be done at the generating points. He said that 70 percent of the waste generated is usually decomposable. Of the remaining 30 percent a part would be items that can be recycled leaving only 20 to 25 percent of the total waste for processing at the treatment plants. He said that the land identified by the LSGs for establishing waste treatment plants could be utilized for stocking and sorting out of the waste collected from households and production of compost by utilising the decomposable waste. He said that the solid waste to be processed or treated could be transported to the centralised processing plant in the district for processing. He said that the centralised plant of the required capacity could be established jointly by the LSGs or assigned to a recognised agency under the build operate and transfer (BOT) basis. He said that the system suggested by him is being successfully practiced in many developed countries at present.