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Chandigarh MC proposes to set up temporary composting plant to process wet waste
With Chandigarh municipal corporation dumping around 174 MT of unprocessed wet waste at Dadumajra dumping ground daily, another 2 LMT garbage dump mountain can be built up in two years
In a bid to process the city’s wet waste and to prevent pilling of another mountain of legacy waste, the municipal corporation (MC) has proposed to set up a temporary composting plant at the Dadumajra dumping ground at a cost of ₹10.53 crore.
The agenda will be taken up a special House meeting on May 13, along with that of the integrated solid waste processing plant project in Sector 25.
In the proposed plan, the MC said, “At present, the civic body collects around 550 metric tonnes (MT) garbage daily, of which around 374 MT is wet waste while the remaining is dry waste. The MCC is operating a wet waste plant in the premises of Jaypee Group Plant, whose capacity, even after advancement and extensions, is less than 200 MT daily. With insufficient processing capacity, the civic body is dumping around 174 MT of unprocessed wet waste at Dadumajra dumping ground daily.”
“Though the MC has initiated a project to set up an integrated solid waste processing plant in Sector 25, it will take around 24 months for the plant to get operational, which includes the construction period after allotment of the project. In the meantime, another legacy waste mountain of approximately 2 lakh metric ton can be built up in 2.5 years which shall require to be managed and bio remediated by incurring an expenditure of more than ₹20 crores. It shall also cause pollution and generate leachate, creating hardship for people living in the vicinity,” the civic body added.
Giving further details, the officials said this proposed plant will be of 200 MT capacity and will be set up at 5 acre and at the cleared Dadumajra site.
“The plant shall process fresh waste and prevent the same from being dumped at the landfill site. An agency can be hired to manage and operate the plant by providing machinery, manpower and any other related items. But MC will bear the setting up cost, which will work for a period of 2 years or till the operationalisation of the integrated solid waste management plant, whichever is earlier,” the officials stated.
MC’s Integrated solid waste plant project
Aimed at effectively tackling the city’s daily waste generation of 550 MT, the new plant, with a capacity of 600 tonnes per day, is proposed to comprise three facilities – one each for dry, wet and horticulture waste. Spread over 20 acres, it will be set up on a part of the Dadumajra landfill after clearing the area. The UT administration had accepted the recommendations of the CSIR-National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI), a consultant hired by the civic body, to set up the plant.
The civic body said, “The waste management journey of Chandigarh has been checkered and two legacy waste mountains of 5 LMT and 8 LMT have come up in the past decades as a result of inadequate waste processing facilities. The dry waste plant machinery is old and its life is anticipated not to be more than three years. Also, the wet waste processing is insufficient and the civic body is dumping around 174MT unprocessed wet waste daily. Looking at the midterm and long-term interventions, in the absence of which another dumpsite might soon come up, an integrated waste processing plant is required.”
After approval by the general house, the civic body is expecting to float the tenders by May this year and allot the work by July. The MC aims to start the work by December this year.