Stepping up its battle against plastic waste and to achieve the goal of ‘plastic free railway’, three more plastic crushing machines will be installed at the Thiruvananthapuram Central railway station.
A two-tonne automatic dehumidifier will also be installed near the second entry of the railway station on Power House road at an estimated cost of ₹50 lakh to take care of quick disposal of biowaste. With this, Railways will be able to sell pulverised manure in 24 hours.
“The proposal is awaiting financial clearance and Railways will install two units. They will be run by the cleaning contractor,” Station Director S. Ajay Kaushik told The Hindu .
Wet waste
The proposed facility, the first in Thiruvananthapuram railway division, is in addition to the existing Thumboormoozhi model aerobic compost unit that takes care of 400 kg of wet waste generated from 25 trains that reach the station.
The automatic dehumidifier has been chosen considering its ability to dehydrate the wet waste in 24 hours and as it requires only less space. In the existing aerobic bins, the time needed for decomposition is 28-32 days.
Three more plastic bottle crushing units are to be installed on the station premises under the Members of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS) of Shashi Tharoor and Suresh Gopi. With this, the units would go up to four, Mr. Kaushik said.
The station has a plastic shredding unit to take care of single use plastic. The segregated plastic is baled and bundled and sold to Clean Kerala Mission while the higher density plastic is sold separately. Around 800- 1,000 kg plastic reaches the station daily from trains and through passengers.
‘No’ to single-use plastic
Railways have decided to strictly enforce the ban on single-use plastic materials as mooted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi from October 2. With this in mind, Railways will ban single-use plastic material with less than 50 micron thickness.
All vendors will be told to avoid plastic carry bags from October 2. The rail personnel have been asked to reduce, reuse and refuse plastic products and to use inexpensive reusable bags.
The IRCTC will implement return of plastic drinking water bottles as part of Extended Producer Responsibility.
