“The plant currently uses 300 metric tonne waste to generate 3 mega
watt electricity. It will soon upgraded to take 700 metric tonne waste
to generate 10 mega watt electricity,” said Suresh Jagtap, joint commissioner and incharge of municipal solid waste at PMC

Pune city generates around 1,600 metric tonne garbage every day. Of which, waste to energy projects make use of 375 metric tonne waste.

“Besides, a total 15 more bio gas plants are currently under
construction. Once, all of them become operational, they will take care
of 75 metric tonne of waste every day. That means we will soon be able
to make use of 850 metric tonne of city’s waste for generating
electricity,” Jagtap said.

The civic body started tackling the
problem of solid waste disposal in a phased manner. Earlier, their sole
disposal site was at Urali Devachi, around 30 kms from Pune. PMC had to
bear huge transportation cost. The garbage that was being dumped at
Urali Devachi was also posed potential threats like leachate mixing with
the ground water, foul smell, vectors carrying diseases, and landfill
fires (due to trapped methane inside the dumped waste).

Further
to this, prime land was being utilized for garbage dumping and sooner
or later, PMC would have had to scout for additional land for disposal
of its solid waste. With an estimated existent waste of 3 million tonnes
and a further input of 1200-1400 tonnes per day of waste generation,
the land at Urali Devachi was getting saturated. PMC then started
looking for an environmentally friendly and sustainable solution for its
municipal solid waste disposal.