A study by a team of Chennai Corporation engineers in seven solid waste management plants in China and Singapore has emerged as the basis of a decision to be taken by the Corporation on technology to be shortlisted.
A total of 31 multi-national companies have expressed interest in supplying suitable technology to the Corporation for its solid waste management initiative that includes remediation and scientific closure of the Perungudi and Kodungaiyur dumps.
The team of officials led by Corporation Commissioner D.Karthikeyan returned this week from China after their study of solid waste management plants in Shanghai, Chongqing, Hong Kong and Singapore.
According to officials who visited the plants, power generation from waste in many solid waste management factories were crucial parts of the study. Generation of power from methane gases tapped from gigantic landfill was one option studied. The plants studied range from 20 to 24 MW of power generation. But, the land identified so far by the civic body in and around Chennai may not be suitable for such technology at the current level of garbage generation. Land identified by the Corporation on the southern outskirts in Kancheepuram district has a size of 55 acres while the northern suburb in Tiruvallur district has a piece of land measuring 100 acre.
The other option studied was incineration technology which requires smaller pieces of land. The option of using seawater or air as coolant was also studied.
Normally, such a solid waste management factory will come up on a 6-10 acre area and require additional land of 30 to 40 acre.
After the Tamil Nadu Urban Infrastructure Financial Services Ltd assists the Corporation to zero in on the right technology, the Corporation Council would approve the private company's participation in solid waste management of the city. A few months ago, the Corporation commenced its search for sustainable world class technology in the wake of the National Green Tribunal setting aside the environmental clearance granted by the State government to the integrated solid waste management facility at Perungudi.
The civic body is in the process of identifying a few alternative regional landfills and may commence work on remediation of the Perungudi and Kodungaiyur dumps .
The initiative includes the design of a scalable and modular plant with a future capacity of processing 10,000 tonnes of municipal solid waste per day.
A total of 29 of the technologies accepted are for processing waste, 23 for remediation and 17 for collection and transportation of garbage.
As the study in China and Singapore has evoked memories of visits to foreign countries by various department officials to clean up the Cooum river in the past, the civic body has started to experience the pressure of proving that this foreign visit is not another waste of funds.
