East Delhi to soon get new waste-to-energy plant, MoU signed

The new waste-to-energy (WTE) plant in east Delhi will include a WTE, a bio-methanation plant, an aerobic composter and a small C&D waste plant to create tiles from fly ash. It will have a capacity of 2,000 metric tonnes and produce 12 MW electricity.

After the Ghazipur waste-to-energy (WTE) plant, east Delhi will soon get a second such facility to process the 2,800 metric tonnes of mixed waste it receives daily.

The Ghazipur waste-to-energy plant at Ghazipur in east Delhi. EDMC will now build another such plant in the area for which the location is yet to be decided. (HT FIle)

The facility will include a WTE, a bio-methanation plant, an aerobic composter and a small C&D waste plant to create tiles from fly ash. It will have a capacity of 2,000 metric tonnes and produce 12 MW electricity.

The East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) commissioner, Dilraj Kaur, Thursday signed a memorandum of understanding with the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) to build an ‘integrated waste processing facility’. This will tentatively be ready by 2021, the official said.

The location is yet to be decided. The corporation is considering sites in Ghazipur, Ghonda Gujran and Sonia Vihar, in consultation with the Delhi Development Authority.

Officials said similar to the Ghazipur WTE, which handles 1,300 metric tonnes of waste that comes in daily, the new plant will also handle fresh waste.

“Another plant for which we signed an agreement with the Singapore-based company, AG Dauters, in August 2018, will process legacy waste that has been accumulating over decades at the Ghazipur landfill,” Pradeep Khandelwal, chief engineer, EDMC, said.

Kaur said, “We need a facility as the fresh waste is mounting at Ghazipur landfill daily. It has already crossed the 65 metre height and is generating litres of leachate that seeps underground and vitiates the environment.”

General Manager, NTPC, Amit Kulshreshtha said, “Until now, all plants have been coal-based. Also, this facility will be of global standards and odourless so that local residents are not hassled. The power and bio-CNG generated will help us earn revenue.”

Swati Singh Sambyal, programme manager, solid waste management at Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), however, said WTEs mean incineration and that is one of the worst practices to be followed. “You are violating the Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016, which explicitly call for segregation and no mixing. We already have three WTEs in Delhi and the city will turn into a gas chamber if we incinerate more trash.”

“Why can’t we turn our dhalaos into dry waste processing facilities instead?” she said.