7 garbage-processing units not yet ready

Mangalore Today News Network

Bangaluru, Nov 04, 2014, DHNS: Barely a month away from the December 1 deadline to stop dumping garbage at the Mandur landfill on the City’s outskirts, the seven new waste processing units proposed by the  Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) are still not ready.

Barring the Kannahalli processing plant on Magadi Road, the other units have no processing facilities in place,  said Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB) officials after a field visit.

 “With nothing in place at the proposed units and no plan for the future, we fear that these waste processing sites will turn into garbage dumps like Mavallipura in the past and Mandur now. This will not only contaminate ground water across Bangalore City but also spread disease and make the City worse than what it is now,” a senior KSPCB official told Deccan Herald.

KSPCB gave permission to the BBMP for starting the waste processing units due to pressure from the State government.

“The government as well as BBMP officials insisted that we give clearances saying that things will be in place by November 2014. But there is nothing on ground. Work is progressing very slowly. Only at Kannahalli there is some progress because the plant is being set up by Bruhat Bangalore Hotels Association (BBHA). Also, now BBMP is searching for more space like abandoned quarrying sites, to dump garbage,” he noted.

The BBMP is setting up seven waste processing sites in Doddaballapur (500 -tonne capacity), Lingadeeranahalli (200 tonnes), Doddabidarakallu (200 tonnes), Subbarayanapalya (200 tonnes), Seegehalli (150 tonnes), Kannahalli (500 tonnes) and Chikkanagamangala (500 tonnes).

Speaking about the Kannahalli site, BBHA Secretary A Ramamurthy said: “The BBMP has given us five acres on annual rent of Rs 1 lakh. We have outsourced our processing to Nobel Exchange, which has set up a 250-tonne plant to convert kitchen waste to manure and compressed bio-methane gas. This will start from January 2015.”

Ramamurthy also said that until then all the waste will be going to other composting sites.  Nobel is charging hotels 90 paise for a kg of waste if they are within 0-15 km from the location.

Thereafter, Rs 1.25 a kg will be charged and if the distance is beyond 30 km, Rs 1.60 will be charged. They also have permission to sell manure and methane gas.
Reacting to this, BBMP Commissioner M Lakshminarayan said KSPCB cannot comment until the units start functioning.

“We will do our best and ensure that they do not turn into dump sites. All seven units will only be processing units and some rejected matter will go to the landfill site.”

 

Courtesy: Deccan herald