Kannur is expected to be a poultry waste free-district with the completion of a chicken rendering plant being set up near Mattannur here with a capacity to treat 30 tonnes of waste a day.
The plant being built near Mattannur along with a 10-tonne rendering plant set up by the Clean Kannur Ventures, a collective of non-resident Keralites with the cooperation of the Pappinissery grama panchayat will be an answer to the environmental and health hazards posed by waste from abattoirs and poultry stalls.
The district is estimated to have 1,881 poultry stalls.
Plant in 4 months
“The rendering plant at Mattanur is expected to be completed in four months,” said P.V. Mohanan, who is an expert committee member of the Kerala Shuchitwa Mission and former managing director of the Meat Products of India, who is actively involved in the setting up of the plant at Pappinissery.
Both the plants could treat the waste collected from the poultry stalls in the entire district, he said. As chicken stalls without waste management system would not be issued licence as per the Food Safety Standard Act, centralised poultry-waste rendering plant was the only solution, he added.
Before the launch of the rendering plant at Pappinissery last year, the Valapattanam river and its banks along the National Highway had been used as dump by unauthorised poultry waste collectors.
The chicken waste collected from Pappinissery, Valapattanam, Chirakkal, Azhikode, Narath, Mattool, Ezhome, Kalliassery and Cherukunnu grama panchayats and Anthur and Taliparamba municipalities and some poultry stalls are being processed at the ₹2.5-crore rendering plant at Pappinissery in the land and building provided by the Pappinissery panchayat.
Use of meat meal
Meat meal produced from the poultry waste is used in production of dog feed, cat feed and fish feed. Meat meal is also added to pig feed and chicken feed.
Mr. Mohanan said that one kilogramme of chicken waste would yield about 300 gm of meat meal. As per agreement between poultry stall owners and the rendering plant, the former would pay ₹6 per kg of waste as collection and processing charges.