Solid Waste Management

Council gives nod for waste-to-energy project

Tuesday, 19 March 2013 05:00 administrator

The Hindu 19.03.2013

Council gives nod for waste-to-energy project

The Coimbatore Corporation Council on Monday accorded approval for the waste-to-energy project. At the urgent meeting, the Council decided to implement the project, which will use 500 metric tonnes waste a day to generate power.

The Council approving of the project comes days after Finance and Taxation Committee Chairperson R. Prabhakaran made an announcement in this regard in the Corporation Budget for 2013-14.

The resolution said that the Corporation had been implementing solid waste project since 2008 after it obtained Rs. 68.93 crore from the Central Government under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission.

It had handed over the project to the Coimbatore Integrated Solid Waste Management Company, the responsibility of which was to establish four transit stations, engage in secondary transportation of waste from the transit stations to the Vellalore yard, establish compost plant to process the waste and also a sanitary landfill. The company also had to run the facility for 20 years.

The Corporation’s task is to hand over the waste collected from the primary waste collection process to the company.

The resolution also said that the company had to segregate the waste into degradable waste, non-degradable waste and rejects to process the degradable waste into compost using the aerobic digestion process and dump the non-degradable waste and rejects into the sanitary land fill facility.

But after the passage of the agreement, the volume of the waste the Corporation collected everyday had increased by 250 metric tonnes a day after the merger of three municipalities, seven town panchayats and a village panchayat.

The company received around 850 metric tonnes waste a day which it found difficult to process, given the installed capacity, which was 500 tonnes of processed waste.

Meanwhile, the Corporation had decided to establish a waste-to-energy project as announced in the Corporation Budget 2012-13. Consequent upon the announcement, a team of officials visited waste-to-energy project facilities in the Pune and Delhi Municipal Corporations and concluded that such a facility was possible in Coimbatore as well.

The resolution said that the Corporation could establish the waste-to-energy plant at the Vellalore yard or any other convenient place in the public-private partnership mode.

After the Council passed the resolution, North Zone Chairman P. Rajkumar appealed to Mayor S.M. Velusamy to also have a facility to dispose of construction debris. Referring to his recent visit to New Delhi, he said that the Delhi Municipal Corporation had a facility to process the debris, which it, with the help of a private party, segregated into sand, bricks and other waste.

If the Corporation were to establish a similar facility, it would go a long way in saving the water tanks in the city, the survival of which were threatened because of the indiscriminate dumping of the debris.

Deputy Commissioner S. Sivarasu said that it would be easy for the Delhi Municipal Corporation to implement the project because it received a steady tonnage of debris, which was around 200. But, not the Coimbatore Corporation.

For the project to be successful, the Coimbatore Corporation too should receive a steady tonnage of debris.

The Mayor promised to consider the suggestion.

Proposal to create space for more garbage raises a stink

Monday, 18 March 2013 05:24 administrator

The Hindu 18.03.2013

Proposal to create space for more garbage raises a stink

ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARD:Mounds of solid waste at the garbage dump at Ariyamangalam in Tiruchi pose a health hazard.— Photo: M.Moorthy.

Ariyamangalam people demand shifting of garbage dump to outskirts.

The Tiruchirapalli City Corporation Budget announcement on clearing a portion of its sprawling Ariyamangalam dump, to create space for accommodating more garbage from the city, has run into opposition from local residents.

Although the garbage dump is bursting at its seams, with over 12 lakh tonnes of solid waste accumulating down the years, the corporation in its Budget 2013-14 has unveiled a plan to clear about five acres in the northeast corner of the 40-acre dump to create the space for dumping about 400 tonnes of garbage generated in the city every day. The task is estimated to cost the agency Rs. 8 crore.

The move flies in the face of the persistent demands from local residents to shift the garbage dump to the outskirts of the city. Faced with heavy pollution from the mounds of reeking garbage, people living in and around the dump at Ariyamangalam have been campaigning over the past couple of years seeking steps to shift the dump and to remove the accumulated garbage.

The corporation had toyed with various ideas to overcome the problem. A proposal to go in for ‘scientific closure’ of the accumulated garbage, by converting them into green hillocks, on the lines of a project executed in Coimbatore failed to take off.

Thousands of residents in the three wards of 7, 28, and 29 have been badly affected by the pollution caused by the garbage dump. Several educational institutions are located around it. Apart from the heavy air pollution, the groundwater in the area is getting polluted . The putrefied garbage attracts a large number of pigs. Many residents are already suffering from wheezing owing to the air and dust pollution from the dump, locals complain.

“We were hoping that the Corporation will at least stop dumping more garbage here and start removing the accumulated garbage gradually. It is shocking that they have decided to go on dumping the city’s everyday garbage collection here,” regretted Rajan, a resident of Mela Ambikapuram.

S.P. Saravanan, a former councillor of Ariyamangalam area who has been campaigning for shifting the dump, questions the decision to spend Rs. 8 crore on this venture when the civic body has presented a Budget with a deficit of Rs. 18 crore. “It is a complete waste of public money. It smacks of neglect of people’s interest,” he said.

The move, he said, went against the Corporation’s assurance given to the residents last year that the dump would be shifted. “Following representations, the Ariyamangalam Assistant Commissioner has given me a reply in September last year assuring that a site will be identified on the outskirts of the city and the garbage dump will be shifted there with the approval of the Corporation Council. We do not know what happened to the assurance,” he said.

The air pollution caused by the dump, he said, was now spreading up to Tiruverumbur, especially as the garbage frequently catches fire due to gaseous emissions.

Mr. Saravanan and a section of local residents suggest that the accumulated garbage could be removed and dumped at the abandoned stone quarries near Thuvakudi and closed properly. “These are huge quarry sites, some of them running to a depth of 200 to 300 feet. They can easily accommodate the accumulated garbage and also take in the garbage collected from the city every day,” Mr. Saravanan said.

Waste management plant in Kuthambakkam soon?

Saturday, 02 March 2013 09:16 administrator

The Hindu 02.03.2013

Waste management plant in Kuthambakkam soon?

Staff Reporter

The city’s waste management plant may soon be set up in Kuthambakkam.

Of the 10 bids received by Chennai Corporation from private companies for the setting up of such plants to process municipal solid waste, six have proposed that such a facility be set up in Kuthambakkam.

The four other companies had named Minjur as their preferred locality.

The bids were from the 10 companies short-listed by the civic body to tackle the growing problem of waste disposal in the city. Kuthambakkam, which has a 99-acre plot of land identified for the project, is significantly larger than Minjur’s 67-acre plot.

Most of the city’s waste is likely to be processed in the proposed Kuthambakkam plant. Initially more than 2,500 tonnes of municipal solid waste generated in the southern parts of the city will be processed in Kuthambakkam, which is preferred for its easy access. Kuthambakkam is just 10 km from Poonamallee.

The facility will convert the waste into compost and will also generate energy from waste.

However, preference will be given to the waste-to-energy technology. The tender evaluation committee will finalise one company from the 10 to carry out the project, soon.

This apart, around 2,000 tonnes of waste from the northern parts of the city will be processed in Minjur by December 2014. After the plants are commissioned, solid waste generated in the city may no longer be transported to Kodungaiyur and Perungudi dumping yards, where it is currently disposed of.

The technology adopted by the plants will not pollute neighbourhoods, said a Corporation official.

Most of Chennai city’s waste is likely to be processed in the proposed plant

Last Updated on Saturday, 02 March 2013 09:18

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