Students write the clean­up script

MUMBAI: When the Deonar landfill caught fire in March this year, leading to a surge in air pollution and jeopardising the health of people living in the city’s eastern suburbs, the BMC turned to Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IIT-B) to suggest preventive measures. While experts at the institute find ways to address the city’s solid waste problem, students and researchers at other engineering colleges in the city, too, are engaged in similar projects.

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A year ago, Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute (VJTI), Matunga, a technical institute in the city, inaugurated the Centre of Excellence in Complex and Non-linear Dynamic Systems with a funding of Rs5 crore from World Bank. Among other projects, the centre is working to find technological solutions for better waste management in the city.

According to Farooq Kazi, a professor at the institute, several PhD and MTech students are working at the centre, building electronic controls for waste management plants.

They are working on a simulated platform, which was donated to the institute by a private firm. ”Waste management is not a part of the engineering curriculum. But this lab was built so that students work on practical projects. VJTI is involved in the Smart City project, of which the waste management is an integral aspect,” said Kazi.

The students are concerned about the impact of untreated waste on the city’s environment.

Earlier this year, a group of civil engineering students from Kalsekar Technical Campus in Panvel, decided to study the scale of water pollution in Mithi river and its impact on the soil around the river, as part of their finalyear project. They plan to collect the samples of water and the soil around the river and test them for pollutants. ”Our project will have a practical application [for the city],” said Ubaid Shaikh, a team member .

Beyond academic research, students are also working on finding solutions to the city’s waste problem. A research assistant at IIT-B, for instance, is focussing on leachate - the liquid waste - spilling from Deonar dump yard, for his PhD thesis.

“As part of my research, I worked on how to treat leachate, so that it remains below the permissible level of contamination,” he said.