The students of government and aided schools across the state will now learn something new on solid waste management other than what they have learnt from their textbooks.

The Agriculture Department in association with the Department of Education is installing biogas plants on the premises of schools across the state. The primary aim of the project, being implemented at a cost of Rs 8 crore, is to provide cooking gas for preparing mid-day meals in schools and effective biowaste management. The solid waste management through biogas plants would also give insights to children on keeping the premises of schools clean.

“This might not help in providing sufficient cooking gas to meet the demand for preparing full meals of a day. But it would be possible to meet part of the demand which would be of great solace to the schools. The students would also learn on how to keep the school premises clean in a more effective way,” Agriculture Department director R Ajithkumar told Express.

Providing enriched organic manure to the school vegetable gardens and creating a learning atmosphere for students to convert residues from vegetable gardens into biogas and organic manures are also the objectives of the project.

The Agriculture Department has vegetable gardens in 2,500 schools across the state. It is expected that the waste from the cultivation and food waste can be effectively processed through the biogas plants.

The tender process to install the plants had begun and the project would be rolled out by February next year.

In the first phase, it has been proposed to establish 3,825 portable biogas plants in the same number of schools. It would depend upon the availability of waste in schools and the interests of students and teachers. The selection of schools for the construction of biogas plants would be done by the Education Department while the agency to construct the plants would be selected by the Agriculture Department.