Faulty handling of poultry waste has for long been cited as the cause for problems ranging from pollution of waterbodies to increase in stray dog population in the State.
But now, major strides are being made by the Local Self Government department and Suchitwa Mission in the past two years to tackle the issue, with 40 chicken waste rendering plants becoming functional across 10 districts under public-private-partnership model. Plants are to be set up in the remaining four districts too within a year.
One of the solutions found for the problem by various local bodies in recent years was to hand over the poultry waste to pig farms. Although this was moderately successful, some of those contracted for collecting the waste were found to be doing it for the money they got as collection fee. The waste would be found dumped in public spaces or water bodies.
The method of using biogas plants to process the waste was also found to be ineffective, as feather and similar types of waste could not be processed. This is when the Suchitwa Mission hit upon the idea of rendering plants, which could process all kinds of waste and produce useful raw materials.
"All the chicken waste, including the feather, is steamed and cooked to turn it into a powder form, which is used as raw material for dog feed and animal feed. The government is now implementing a system to ensure that chicken waste reaches these plants. The poultry shop owner should either have a facility to process the waste produced or hand these over to those running the rendering plant in the area. The maximum fee for collection has been fixed at ₹7 per kilogram. All the plants have refrigerated vehicles for collecting the waste," says K.T. Balabhaskaran, executive director, Suchitwa Mission.
Chicken waste, including the feather, is steamed and cooked to turn it into a powder form in the rendering plants. The byproduct is then used as raw material for dog feed and animal feed.
According to the Suchitwa Mission's estimates, 1,080 tonne per day of chicken waste is produced from the 16,000 poultry stores across the State. The 40 plants that have now become functional have a total capacity to process as much as 75% of this waste. The first of the plants was set up on an experimental basis in Pappinissery in Kannur in 2019.
With the model found to be successful, the Local Self Government department issued detailed guidelines for licensing poultry meat stalls and poultry waste rendering plants in October 2021, after which more plants were set up in other districts. Currently, Kottayam, Idukki and Alappuzha are the districts to yet have a plant, while the work on a plant in Thiruvananthapuram is ongoing.
"District-level facilitation and monitoring committees, headed by the Collectors, have been set up to ensure the viability of the plants before sanctioning. A sufficient supply of waste has to be provided to make the plant viable. Already, in some places, the plant owners are lowering the collection fee so that they would get more waste. The government is mainly playing the role of a facilitator, with the local bodies in some areas also providing land for the plant. Due to the PPP model, there is no additional financial burden on the local bodies," says G. Jyothish Chandran, director (Solid Waste Management), Suchitwa Mission.
