The Kozhikode Municipal Corporation is considering a project to produce electricity from waste with the support of the State Suchitwa Mission and the Kerala State Pollution Control Board. The ₹200-crore project was proposed in the Detailed Project Report for solid waste management.
As per the project report prepared and presented by Health Inspector Krishna Kumar, out of the 300 tonnes of waste produced in the corporation limits a day, only 60 to 80 tonnes go to the solid waste treatment plant in Njeliyanparamba. Of the remaining waste, 100 to 120 tonnes are processed at the source or sent for recycling. The remaining 100 to 140 tonnes of waste is mostly thrown away. The waste that cannot be recycled is rejected. These include rubber, metal coated plastic, thermocol, sponge, rexin, non-woven bags, synthetic fabric, sanitary napkins and diapers. Besides these, biodegradable waste such as plantain leaves, wood pieces, garden and plantation waste are also discarded.
Thus, around 125 tonnes of waste is discarded per day. The project proposes that ‘gasification’, through which energy can be produced from waste, is a viable option here. The corporation is expected to produce around 100 megawatt power a day. Of this, 90 megawatt could be sold at the rate of ₹6 per unit, which would earn it an income of around ₹18 crore per year. Thus, the corporation could recover the expenditure for the project in 15 years, the report says.
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Feasibility study
However, the absence of such plant in Kerala makes it difficult to assess the viability of the project. So a feasibility study has been proposed. The project requires around 2 acres of land. The project, expected to be eco-friendly, will be implemented as per the guidelines of the Suchitwa Mission and the Pollution Control Board, says the report
The report also proposes the setting up of a ₹12-crore modern slaughterhouse in the corporation. There are proposals to purchase street sweeping equipment at a cost of ₹26 lakh and transportation vehicles at a cost of ₹3.12 crore. An expenditure of ₹3 crore has been estimated for the subsidy of decentralised waste processing, ₹2.8 crore for the handling of nonbiodegradable waste and ₹10 lakh for awareness campaigns on waste segregation.
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The report proposes a state-of-the-art facility in Njeliyanparamba for the processing of non-biodegradable waste.