At a juncture when the Greater Chennai Corporation is trying to find a solution for its garbage disposal issues, the neighbouring Tiruvallur district administration has started testing garbage decomposition equipment to burn its waste and convert it into ash.
The ECOMAC Municipal Solid Waste Management Machine was installed on the Gummidipoondi SIPCOT premises recently, and its operation was inspected by Tiruvallur Collector Maheswari Ravikumar.
The equipment runs on magnetic heat technology and uses electricity for the chimney, said N. Vetriarasu, executive officer, Gummidipondi town panchayat.
“It can destroy metal cans, scrap, building debris and other forms of garbage. Our daily garbage collection is six tonnes. In a day, this machine can handle three tonnes and its residual waste is 10 kg ceramic ash. This can be used for house painting and road asphalting,” said Mr. Vetriarasu.
He said that the smoke let out was also very less. “But it cannot destroy glass, metal, sand, soil, rock and ceramics. A major portion of the garbage is plastic, used for packing goods. We need more machines such as these across the district,” he said.
Officials said that the garbage collected from the town panchayat used to be dumped in rivers or open grounds earlier.
“Since the machine has been introduced, such incidents have reduced drastically,” said an official.