Bengaluru: In two months, massive fires broke out in the garbage processing units at Kannahalli (in October) and Chikkanagamangala (in November), gutting almost the entire plant. But why have fires broken out at the plants so often?
Blame it on the mountain of Residual Derivative Fuel (RDF) waste at these plants that have been accumulating over the last couple of months. By one BBMP official's admission, the backlog at the six processing plants amounts to at least 15,000 tonnes. They occupy most of the space in these plants and are emanating a foul smell.
RDF is the material that is sieved out at the plants from mixed waste that is reaching most plants. “Since this RDF waste also has remnants of wet waste, it releases highly combustible methane gas, causing fires that spread rapidly,” said N.S. Ramakanth, member, SWM Expert Committee, BBMP.
However, he doesn’t rule out sabotage since the foul smell leads to protests by villagers and affects functioning of the plants.
The RDF waste was supposed to go to cement factories. However, there is no cement factory near Bengaluru.
Sarfaraz Khan, Joint Commissioner, SWM, BBMP, said, “We had multiple meetings with cement factories’ association of Kalaburagi. They have been asking the BBMP to bear the cost of transportation and pay them a processing fee, which is not feasible. They are not enthusiastic for two reasons – the calorific value of RDF waste is around 3000, while they prefer materials with a calorific value of around 6000. Moreover, since RDF waste is separated from mixed waste, it contains a large amount of moisture, which cement factories do not want.”
Ramprasad, another activist in the SWM sector, said that while BBMP had announced that the six compost processing units would be retro-fitted with Waste to Energy technology to incinerate RDF, it has failed to take off, aggravating the problem. Mr. Khan said that if no sustainable solution is found, the only way out could be to dump the backlog RDF waste in an abandoned stone quarry and soil cap it.
The only long-term sustainable solution would be segregation of waste at source, which would put an end to creation of RDF waste. But segregation at source has failed to take off at the pan-city level, despite the High Court mandating 2Bin1Bag policy in the city almost a year ago.
Fire at plants
October 2016: A massive fire broke out at the Kannahalli plant, which raged on for over 10 days before it was put off
November 27, 2016: A fire broke out at the Chikkanagamangala plant, which is yet to put out
Six processing units
