In January this year the Coimbatore Corporation had given permission to the Residents’ Awareness Association of Coimbatore and Alagana Kovai to run the micro compost centre (MCC) in Ondipudur.
Three months on, the two organisations have started processing dry, wet and garden waste in three sheds in the MCC in Ondipudur.
Representatives of the two organisations said the MCC received two tonnes of dry waste a day, collected from wards in the East Zone. Fifty per cent of the waste received was of the recyclable type and the rest was converted as refuse derived fuel to be sold to industries.
The workers at the dry waste shed segregated the waste into 16 categories – various types of paper, plastics based on density, glass, metals, rubber, etc. They bundled the papers to be sold to paper and cardboard industries for recycling, recyclable plastics to plastic industries and non-recyclable plastics to industries to be used as fuel.
The organisations had engaged another set of labourers who shredded garden waste to sell big twigs as firewood and convert small twigs and leaves as briquette to be sold as fuel.
The Residents’ Awareness Association of Coimbatore and Alagana Kovai used the third shed for processing wet waste. The 100% unadulterated wet waste that the Corporation workers deliver after collection from bulk waste generators in East Zone is shredded and dried.
The dried waste, was again, converted to briquette to be sold as fuel to industries, the sources said and added that the two organisations had tied-up with industries to sell the fuel. While shredding and drying the waste they get slurry which they would use in a biogas plant to fire a blower used for drying the waste.
At present, the organisations were in the process of completing the biogas plant construction, the sources said and added that wet waste processing was one of a kind in the city where wet waste could be converted to dry, fuel within 48 hours and that too in an environment free of odour and flies.
Sources in the Corporation said if the model adopted in Ondipudur proved to be a success in the long run the Corporation could consider replicating it in other MCCs.
