From March, Chandigarh to process 100% of daily wet waste
A temporary wet waste plant, with the capacity to process 200 MT of wet waste daily, is being set up on 5 acres cleared at the Dadumajra landfill in Chandigarh
Coming March, the Chandigarh municipal corporation (MC) will be able to process 100% of the city’s daily wet waste as the project to set up a temporary wet waste processing plant is near its completion.
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, including horticulture and sanitary waste. The MC is operating a wet waste plant in the premises of erstwhile Jaypee Group Plant, whose capacity, even after upgradation and extensions, is less than 200 MT daily. With insufficient processing capacity, the civic body is dumping around 174 MT of unprocessed fresh wet waste at Dadumajra dumping ground daily. The dry waste, however, is completely processed on a daily basis.
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 getting operational, which includes the construction period after allotment of the project.
In the meantime, another legacy waste mountain of over 2 lakh MT can be built up, in the 2.5 years, which shall require to be managed and bio-remediated by incurring an expenditure of more than ₹20 crore. It shall also cause pollution and generate leachate, creating hardship for people living in the vicinity. Hence, a temporary wet waste plant is being set up in Dadumajra to process the daily waste.
“The temporary wet waste plant will remain operational till the integrated waste management plant starts its operations. The plant, being set up at a cost of ₹10.53 crore, will have the capacity to process 200 MT of wet waste daily and is being set up on 5 acres cleared at the Dadumajra landfill through bio-mining of legacy waste,” said municipal commissioner Anindita Mitra, adding that the machinery had been fixed and it will be operational in a week.
“The plant will start its operation in February last week and we will then be able to process 100% of the wet waste generated on a daily basis,” Mitra added.
‘88% of legacy waste bio-mined’
The civic body has completed the bio-remediation of 80% legacy waste lying dumped at Dadumajra dumping ground in Sector 25 while the civic body aims to process the remaining waste by February 2024.
A total of 13 lakh MT legacy waste is to be cleared at the landfill to reclaim over 25 acres of land. Of this, 5 lakh MT dumped before 2005 has already been bio-mined under a Smart City project. Meanwhile, bio-remediation of the second mountain of 8LMT is presently being done.
“Of the 8 LMT garbage of the second mountain, 6.5 LMT has already been bio-mined. The work is going on in full swing and the complete mountain will be bio-mined by the end of February. After 13 LMT of legacy waste will be bio-mined, we will measure the wet waste being dumped at the landfill site. We will extend the firm’s contract to bio-mine the dumped wet waste too,” Mitra said.
