4 min readPuneApr 28, 2022 04:06 AM IST
First published on: Apr 28, 2022 at 04:06 AM IST
Across the world, municipal solid waste and its safe disposal have triggered research by scientists and technologists who want to solve the problem once and for all. Most of the research has focused on finding solutions for both wet and dry waste, for municipal landfills and the ever-growing mountains of garbage.
Generation of solid waste in ever expanding urban spaces has far exceeded the infrastructure set up to handle them. The need of the hour is to find a solution that would allow for decentralised treatment of wet garbage (preferably at the source of origin), treat landfills and their legacy waste and come up with solutions for multi-layered plastic that ends up in landfills because of difficulties in recycling.
A look at solutions from Pune that might have some answers to these questions:
Vaayu, turning wastepickers to energy providers
Priyadarshan Sashrabuddhe’s desire to tackle organic (wet) waste stemmed from his student days at IIT-Bombay. A devout votary of a sustainable lifestyle, Sashrabuddhe wanted to come up with solutions for organic waste that would help in disposal and also have a social impact. In his words, the solution should convert the wastepickers into energy providers, allow for decentralised solutions to organic waste and solve the problem of fossil fuel.
“In a world where there is emphasis on reduced use of fossil fuels, organic waste can solve the problem of cooking fuel in a single household. What is needed is intelligent design and quick solutions which can be implemented in a decentralised manner,” he explained.
Sashrabuddhe’s solution relies on generation of biogas from wet waste but uses a much simpler mechanism to handle and operate. Vaayu, the brainchild of Sashrabuddhe, is a simple mechanism that can be set up at the household level and run on a day-to-day basis.
“Vaayu solves the problem of solid waste and access to clean cooking fuel. Biogas generated from organic waste becomes the main cooking fuel,” he said.
Vaayu, or air, involves a special bacterial solution which ‘digests’ the organic waste and generates biogas. The gas generated is stored in an inflated balloon and then supplied through piped installations for cooking. The set includes a digester, where the bacterial decomposition happens and the piped installations which supply the gas for cooking.
Research and development by Sashrabuddhe has allowed development of a better digester which is much easier to handle and much more efficient from the prototype developed in 2018.
A normal Vaayu installation consumes 2 kg of organic waste to generate enough biogas to meet the cooking needs for 40 minutes. The liquid byproduct is an excellent fertiliser which can be reused.
Solving the problem of MLP
In the world of recycling, plastic and its numerous forms present the biggest challenge. Thanks to its durability and almost immortal nature, plastic has become the mythical Lernaean Hydra which is almost impossible to end. Worldwide, research on plastics attracts millions of dollars with scientists and polymer engineers spending endless nights trying to solve this problem.
Multi-layered plastics, or MLP, are the most commonly used packaging material. Easy to use, food manufacturers prefer this to pack their food to retain its freshness and prevent spoilage. What was the biggest boon for the material is now the biggest stumbling block for recylcers. Banker-turned entrepreneur Anish Malpani, founder of Ashaya, is on a mission to solve this problem.
Generation of solid waste in ever expanding urban spaces has far exceeded the infrastructure set up to handle them. 
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