Mumbai’s first-ever construction debris processing facility becomes operational at Dahisar

To tackle this issue, civic authorities had floated a proposal to set up a recycling plant for construction debris last year.

Located at the fag end of north Mumbai’s Kokanipada neighbourhood in Dahisar, this plant is equipped to recycle and process around 600 tonnes of construction debris daily. This plant will also witness Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) unique initiative of ‘debris on call’ service, under which citizens can submit a request for picking up debris from their doorstep or from any given location.

Civic officials said for picking up waste, citizens can raise a ticket through MyBMC mobile application by geo-tagging the location from where the debris needs to be picked up. Within 24 hours, the civic body’s vans will pick up the waste from the said location. The civic authorities will provide free pickup of debris up to 500kg, beyond which a nominal fee will be charged.

Spread across a five-acre land parcel, this plant will cater to the waste that would be coming from Bandra and Dahisar in the western suburbs.

“The debris will be collected only after a pick up request is lodged in our system. For example, if a private property is being demolished or renovated, then citizens can raise a request of collecting debris through the app, following which our trucks will pick up the debris. In case of public infrastructure works, the nodal authorities will have to raise a request through the application, and the debris will be collected in a similar manner,” said an official associated with the project.

“The idea behind this plant is to make it accessible to debris coming from both private and public entities. This plant is a dedicated processing facility for construction waste. At present, Mumbai is witnessing a large-scale infrastructure projects and this plant will lead to 20% of reduction in air pollution,” said the official.

The recycling plant crushes the waste material and washes the sediments away. The extracted plastic items are sent to cement manufacturing industries for reusing them in the production. The remaining aggregate materials that are obtained as an end product are recycled into sand or tiles, which are later used as raw materials for infrastructure projects. Civic officials said the aggregate are being used for making stamp concrete and paver blocks, which are used for constructing the roads and footpaths in Mumbai.

While the cost of setting up the plant stands at Rs 65 crore, civic officials maintained that a fee of Rs 1,425 per tonne will be paid to the contractor responsible for operating and maintaining the plant in the first year. The contractor has been appointed for 20 years and civic officials maintained that overall Rs 1,000 crore will be spent on the plant’s maintenance for 20 years.

Spread across a five-acre land parcel, this plant will cater to the waste that would be coming from Bandra and Dahisar in the western suburbs. While construction debris generated from island city and eastern suburbs is being sent to another facility at Shilphata in Thane.

On Friday former Shiv Sena (UBT) corporator from Dahisar Sujata Patekar raised objections against the plant. Patekar, who met civic officials on Friday, said the plant would contribute to noise and air pollution in the Dahisar area and requested the authorities to relocate the plant.