The Kochi Corporation is likely to get two additional plastic shredding machines soon to deal with mounting plastic waste at the Brahmapuram dumping yard, after the existing unit fell into disuse around six months ago.
An order was placed for two plastic shredding and baling units from Clean Kerala Company Limited at a cost of around ₹8 lakh per unit, and a tender would be invited to operate it, corporation officials said. While the order, which was placed a few months ago, had faced a few procedural hurdles, the process was expedited recently, they said. “Though the decision to purchase two machines had been taken a while ago, the paper work is still ongoing,” said Minimol V.K., member of the Health Standing Committee.
The existing unit, which could handle around a tonne of plastic waste daily, was not in use since it had been launched on a pilot basis, and a formal agreement had not been drawn up with the contractor handling it. In the absence of an agreement, the contractor had ceased operations, officials said. A second unit was also present at the site, but has not been functioning for years.
With the installation of the two new units, the facility at Brahmapuram would be able to shred around four tonnes of plastic daily. Another contractor was recovering a tonne of plastic waste daily from the pile of non-biodegradables at the site and supplying it to recyclers, paying a small amount to the corporation.
Around 85 tonnes of shredded plastic from the existing unit had been sold to Clean Kerala Company Limited after the unit was set up in 2016. The sale had fetched the Corporation around ₹9 lakh, officials said. The company has been supplying it to local bodies Statewide for polymerised roads. Officials at the Clean Kerala Company said that they had not purchased plastic pellets from the Kochi Corporation for over a year.
Not a solution
Shredding was an inadequate solution to the nearly 90 to 100 tonnes of plastic being dumped at the site daily, the officials said. The corporation itself had not been using plastic pellets to tar its roads, they said. The total volume of plastic waste lying at the site would be a little short of 1 lakh tonnes.
A shredding unit that can handle around 400 kg of plastic daily was set up at Ravipuram in 2009 by the corporation, and has been operated since then by the Confederation of Real Estate Developers’ Associations of India (CREDAI) under its Clean City Movement.
“The unit receives plastic waste from nearly 400 apartment complexes in the city and collects around 60 tonnes per month. But we have been struggling to find buyers even among local bodies. The Clean Kerala Company refused to purchase it since we function as an NGO and their tie-ups are mostly with local bodies,” said Joby Jacob, chief operations manager, Clean City Movement.