A lesson in garbage management, from one civic body to another………..MANOJ MORE
Pune Municipal Commissioner Mahesh Zagade has called for generation of energy from garbage to resolve the long-pending dumping row; the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) has embarked on a project on these lines. It hopes to start producing electricity from garbage in six months and supply it to Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Centre Ltd (MSEDCL).
The PCMC garbage depot is in Moshi, well within the corporation limits, unlike that of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), whose depot is outside its jurisdiction at Urali Devachi and Phursungi. Around 500 tonnes of garbage is dumped at the Moshi depot daily. The authorities claim the garbage is being disposed scientifically, leaving little room for complaint.
Our garbage disposal is done in a scientific manner at the Moshi depot and causes little pollution, municipal commissioner Ashish Sharma said on Wednesday. Currently, we are involved in two processes, vermicomposting for vegetable waste and mechanical composting for bio-degradable waste. Whatever is not going into these will go into a sanitary landfill that will be set up in 10 days, Sharma said.
Vermicomposting was the first project the PCMC undertook at the garbage depot. It has also initiated another project to produce electricity from garbage. We are already converting vegetable, hotel and green waste into vermicompost. The plant treats nearly 30 tonnes of vegetable waste and 50 tonnes of hotel waste, said PCMC health officer K Nagkumar.
The mixed waste, the health officer said, is being processed in a mechanical composting system. Aerobic composting is one part, which caters to the civic gardens. The combustible waste is being processed to make RDF (refuse-derived fuel) cakes, he said. These RDF cakes will soon help in generation of electricity. It will take six months. The machinery is being installed and trials will have to be conducted, he said.
Nagkumar said the energy produced will be stored in grids and sold to the MSEDCL after signing an agreement with them. The carbon credit for this project will be shared by the PCMC and contractors. We will not be paying a single paisa. We will give land and garbage to the contractor. The contractor will set up the machinery costing around Rs 30 crore, he said.
The PCMC has planned another garbage depot at Punawale. There had been protests against the plan, but the PCMC hopes to convince the protesters. We had problems in Moshi when the PMC garbage was being dumped, otherwise the residents had been cooperative. We hope the residents of Punawale will also respond positively as we have a scientific way of disposing garbage, Nagkumar said.
Pune Pimpri-chinchwad : Electricity from refuse