Wet garbage to briquettes: PMC allows pvt pilot project at Wadgaon biogas plant

PUNE The Pune Municipal corporation (PMC) has started a pilot project where a biogas will be used to process wet garbage and turn into briquettes (a biomass product with multiple uses) as a final product

PUNE The Pune Municipal corporation (PMC) has started a pilot project where a biogas will be used to process wet garbage and turn into briquettes (a biomass product with multiple uses) as a final product.

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A private company will operate the Wadgaon-Budruk (Sinhgad road) biogas plant to process 40 tonnes of wet garbage a day.

Of a total of 25 biogas plants in the city, the Wadgaon unit is spread over 10,000 square feet and is processing 10 tonnes of wet garbage per day.

The plant stopped working after rain damage during the September 2019 flash floods.

The PMC tried to, unsuccessfully, resurrect it.

Meanwhile, a Pune garbage processing company, Mithras Green Technologies, offered to run the plant with a new technology. A memorandum of understanding (MU) was duly signed.

Sanket Jadhav, junior engineer, solid waste department, said,”PMC signed an agreement in November 2020 and handed over the plant for 11 months on an experiential basis. Earlier, we were using compositing and bio-CNG. Both the methods are outdated. Till date, garden waste was being used to make briquettes. It is the first time we are using wet garbage to make briquettes.”

He further said, “The new plant will process more wet waste. We were processing 10 tonnes of wet garbage per day. Now, we will process up to 40 tonnes per day.”

The PMC wants to hand over its biogas plants to private players on a design-build-finance-operate and transfer (DBFOT) basis.