In a bid to curb pollution, the Delhi government has decided to build waste-to-energy plants at all its wholesale food markets.
The first such plant will be installed at the fish and poultry market in Ghazipur with a second such plant scheduled to come up in the Azadpur fruit and vegetable market.
Ghazipur already has a waste-to-energy plant near its landfill site which treats municipal solid waste. The new proposed plant will only treat poultry waste, around 10-15 metric tonnes of which is produced at the market on a daily basis. The plant is expected to generate 1800KW of electricity every hour. Besides, each tonne of waste treated would generate approximately 150 kilograms of residual manure which can be re-used.
Once this plant is commissioned, similar units are going to be set up at the Azadpur, Keshopur and Okhla fruit and vegetable markets.
“Among all the wholesale markets, Azadpur is the biggest and generates 125 metric tonnes of waste each day. The other two generate 25 tonnes on a daily basis. Currently, all of them are being dumped nearby or at the landfill sites. Building a waste-to-energy plants right at the source will help reduce cost of transportation and load on landfill sites,” said Sakshi Mittal, vice chairman, Delhi Agricultural Marketing Board
Treating poultry waste is much easier than municipal solid waste as the latter has a lot of non-recyclable waste like plastics which need to be segregated first, officials said. The scope of work for the plant at the Ghazipur market includes sweeping, scavenging, collection, segregation and transportation of fish and poultry waste from shops.
{{/usCountry}}Treating poultry waste is much easier than municipal solid waste as the latter has a lot of non-recyclable waste like plastics which need to be segregated first, officials said. The scope of work for the plant at the Ghazipur market includes sweeping, scavenging, collection, segregation and transportation of fish and poultry waste from shops.
{{/usCountry}}“At present, we are incurring an annual expenditure of Rs 11.94 crore on all operations of the fish and poultry market. The power generated by the plant will be enough to run the market on which the development department at present incurs a running cost of Rs 58 lakh per annum. The entire project cost of Rs 6.66 crore is expected to be recovered within 4-5 years,” an official working on the project said.