ISO certification for 17 railway stations

Thiruvananthapuram: Seventeen of the 72 railway stations belonging to the Southern Railway that have obtained ISO:14001 certifications this year are under its Thiruvananthapuram division. Fifteen of them are in Palakkad division. ISO:14001 is a globally accepted international standard for environmental management systems.
Among the factors that obtained the certifications is the Southern Railway initiative to install plastic bottle crushing machines (PBCMs) at stations. A comprehensive policy on installation of PBCMs at stations was introduced in 2019. As part of this, 34 PBCMs have been installed at 30 railway stations. In addition to this, a PBCM is being developed in-house at the Southern Railway central workshop.
Another factor is the automatic organic waste composting plant installed at the Thiruvananthapuram central railway station. Besides this, composting pits are available at Palakkad and composting bins at Shoranur. Together that can handle 1,750kg of waste per day.
The Southern Railway also has provisions to carry out mechanised cleaning of coaches in around 160 of its coaching depots. Machines like high pressure jet cleaners, floor-scrubbers, wet and dry vacuum cleaners, handheld buffing machines, etc. are deployed for the purpose.
Effluent recycling plants with a total capacity of 4,320 kilo litres/day have also been installed at 10 locations. tnn