Nearly three years after a portion of the legacy waste at the landfill yard of Mangaluru City Corporation (MCC) at Pachchanady slipped during the rainy season affecting 35 families and their properties, a Hyderabad-based cooperative agency is all set to launch bio-mining and bio-remediation at the yard for the corporation, soon.
The agency – National Federation of Farmers’ Procurement and Processing and Retailing Cooperatives of India Ltd (NACOF) – which is a multi-State cooperative society will take up the project at a cost of ₹56.38 crore, according to Mayor Premananda Shetty. The corporation handed over the yard to the agency after signing an agreement for the task on April 22.
The agency will have to set up its machinery and augment other facilities required for the mining and remediation which includes construction of leachate storage tanks and sheds, he told The Hindu, adding that it might require two months to begin the task on a full scale.
The agency will have to complete the project within four years, the Mayor said.
Sources in the corporation said that it is estimated that the site has over 9 lakh tonnes of legacy waste dumped for about 35 years. Of the waste spread over 42 acres in the yard, the garbage from 17 acres had slipped in the rainy season affecting 13.5 acres of private land.
Bio-mining is a process involving digging out previously dumped or disposed of material from landfill sites to recover plastic, metal, glass, combustibles, other fine material, and soil. Plastic, metals, and other material thus recovered will be sent for re-cycling. The biodegradable waste in a landfill site gets decomposed. When non-biodegradable materials in the same site are recovered and sent for recycling, the land under them can be reclaimed for further use.
Municipal solid waste is being dumped at Pachchanady for decades without segregation of waste at source.
Sources said that the contract agency will have to collect the leachate generated in the process of mining and treat it.
Earlier, the corporation had prepared a detailed project report (DPR) for bio-mining as per the guidelines of the Central Pollution Control Board estimating the project cost at ₹73.73 crore. The NACOF won the bid by quoting ₹56.38 crore. After the State Cabinet cleared the project in August, 2021, it was awaiting nod from the Finance Department.
The bio-mining technology came to the fore after the Dakshina Kannada Legal Services Authority suo motu took up cognizance of the tragedy in 2019, its impact on the life of people and on water sources in the area, and submitted a report to the Karnataka Legal Services Authority which filed a public interest litigation (PIL) in Karnataka High Court on the matter. Later, the court had directed the civic body and the Government to take corrective measures.
