Following the expected completion of biomining of legacy waste at the Perungudi dumpyard in June 2024, the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) plans to set up various processing facilities on 44 acres of reclaimed land.
According to an engineer of the Corporation, roughly 77% of the legacy waste has been processed. The site, spanning 225.16 acres, earlier used to only receive waste from Zones 9 to 15 and the garbage was a landfill for over 35 years. The accumulated legacy waste stood at 30.62 lakh cubic meters in 2019.
The Corporation began the biomining project, with a sanctioned fund of ₹350.64 crore under the Swachh Bharat Mission scheme and the administrative sanction secured vide a Government Order (G.O.) dated, October 7, 2020.
Spearheading the project is the Centre for Environmental Science, Anna University, which serves as the Project Management Consultancy (PMC). Till date, approximately 23.50 lakh cubic meters of legacy waste (77%) has underwent processing, resulting in reclamation of around 50 acres of land, the engineer said.
According to him, after completion of biomining, the Corporation envisions the establishment of various processing facilities on 44 acres, including a bio-compressed natural gas (Bio-CNG) plant of 500 TPD (tonnes per day) capacity, windrow compost yard of 500 TPD for wet waste processing and an Automated Material Recovery Facility of 1200 TPD for dry waste. “Also, an Eco-Park and/or a Miyawaki Forest has been proposed on 100 acres of land, which will also be retrieved,” he added.
The Corporation has appointed a consultant agency through the Tamil Nadu Urban Infrastructure Financial Services Limited. It will be involved in the preparation of detailed project/feasibility reports for the proposed Solid Waste Management Projects, the engineer further said.
