Confident of making a clean sweep

S.R. Maley is a ‘miracle man’ when it comes to cleaning up the mess left behind by disasters, whether natural or man-made.

The reason why his services were called for, whether in the aftermath of an earthquake in Latur, the floods in Odisha and Mumbai, or a tornado in faraway Philippines.

The septuagenarian agro-environment specialist shot to fame when he was showcased in actor Aamir Khan’s popular television reality show ‘Satyamev Jayate’ for pulling off the seemingly improbable task of cleaning up close to one million tonnes of waste dumped in the western Mumbai suburb area of Gurai in 65 days.

A similar or even tougher task awaits the affable Mr. Maley at the waste treatment plant at Brahmapuram, which he has claimed will be cleaned up in 18 months’ time.

Mr. Maley has started off by dividing the task into four components. The first target is to neutralize the odour from both old and fresh waste by using odour-control spray and through bio-culture treatment. “The odour control programme should be completed in two months,” he said.

The tendering process to select a contractor for treating five lakh tonnes of piled up waste will be set in motion from the third month. The operator selected will have to adopt a bioremediation waste management method whereby organisms like bacteria are used to remove or neutralize pollutants from a contaminated site. A similar method using, what he calls, ‘good bacteria’ and flies was used in Gurai.

Mr. Maley is confident that the entire lot of existing waste should be taken care of within a year. He also proposes a disciplined waste handling protocol for whoever is entrusted with operating the proposed new plant at Brahmapuram. “The contractor concerned cannot go on littering the plant premises,” he said.