NEW DELHI: Under an ambitious project to manage the biodegradable
waste, 10 biomethanation
plants will be set up across the city to generate
biogas that will generate electricity and enriched organic manure from waste.
“These plants will help reduce the frequent
fires at the
landfill sites as organic waste such as dungs from dairies, horticulture waste, and fruit and vegetable waste from bigger markets are the biggest contributors in methane generation at landfill sites,” a senior north corporation official said.
South corporation has been made the nodal agency for the project. “The biogas generated will be used to generate electricity that will be linked to the grid,” said an official privy to the review meetings.
North corporation will set up four such plants of 5 TPD (tonnes per day) capacity each. Similarly, south corporation will also set up 4 plants and east Delhi will get two.
The overall project for waste management under the corporations has been sanctioned by the ministry of housing and urban affairs, and is being carried out under urban development fund. Each plant is expected to cost around 3 to 5 crore. “Overall, Rs 300 crore has been sanctioned for the project, and each civic body will get Rs 100 crore. The urban development ministry will bear 80% of the cost and the rest will be raised by the corporations. For north corporation, even 20% of the cost has been exempted,” an official said.
Corporations will now have to focus on making the residents segregate their waste into dry and wet category. Swati Sambyal, an expert on waste management at Centre for Science and Environment, said that while the composting infrastructure requires more space, biomethanation plants are much more compact and could be a solution for waste management in the capital. “This is a better solution than waste-to-energy plants. A necessary condition to run the plants would be community-based segregation of waste at the source. The civic bodies should focus on segregation and behavior change while setting up infrastructure at this scale,” she said.
Around 60% of the waste generated in Delhi falls under the category of wet waste but despite laws making it mandatory, only minimal segregation at household level is taking place. The cities that are leading in waste management have devised strategies like compositing. Kerala’s Alappuzha has focused on biogas model and thousands of homes have constructed biogas plants in their homes, and
use it for part of their cooking. Alappuzha now has no landfills — the dump yard for waste is no longer used, and the municipality is now planning to build a sports stadium there.
Representative image.
