Pune civic body sends fraction of daily waste to K’taka for fuel in alternate industry

"The industry picks up dry waste of 150 ton every day from city and takes it to its unit in Belgaum. They have a boiler and need lot of fuel for it," Kadam added.

Written by Ajay Jadhav

Pune | October 10, 2023 05:29 PM IST

2 min read

"The initiative of sending 150 ton of dry waste every day to Belgaum has worked successfully. This has reduced some burden of civic body," said Sanjay Kadam, in-charge of Civic Solid Waste Management Department.

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The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has found a new way to dispose the total 2000-ton daily waste generated in the city, by sending it 340-km away to Karnataka’s Belgaum to use it as alternate fuel in industry.

“The initiative of sending 150 ton of dry waste every day to Belgaum has worked successfully. This has reduced some burden of civic body,” said Sanjay Kadam, in-charge of Civic Solid Waste Management Department.

The PMC has signed a contract with a private industry running a cement manufacturing unit in Belgaum.

“The industry picks up dry waste of 150 ton every day from city and takes it to its unit in Belgaum. They have a boiler and need lot of fuel for it,” Kadam added.

The PMC has to pay Rs 900 per ton as tipping fee to the industry, in order to transport the waste from city.

“The civic body pays Rs 1.35 lakh per day to the industry to take the dry waste from its collection centre to Belgaum,” the official said, adding the civic body has found it feasible, considering the expenditure on processing the waste within the city.

The PMC also faces opposition from locals on setting up and operating processing plants in their vicinity, saying that “the availability of land for setting up new processing plant is also a big issue.”

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There is a possibility that the same industry will take the waste from city to Nagpur to use it as alternate fuel for its unit but it is yet to be finalized, he added.

The PMC collects over 2000 ton of waste everyday and 50 per cent of its dry waste. The wet garbage is processed at various plants while the dry waste is used for manufacturing brickets to be used as fuel. With increasing population, the waste collection in the city is also showing an upward trend.

Ajay Jadhav

Ajay Jadhav is an Assistant Editor with The Indian Express, Pune. He writes on Infrastructure, Politics, Civic issues, Sustainable Development and related stuff. He is a trekker and a sports enthusiast. Ajay has written research articles on the Conservancy staff that created a nationwide impact in framing policy to improve the condition of workers handling waste. Ajay has been consistently writing on politics and infrastructure. He brought to light the lack of basic infrastructure of school and hospital in the hometown of Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde even as two private helipads were developed by the leader who mostly commutes from Mumbai to Satara in helicopter. Ajay has been reporting on sustainable development initiatives that protects the environment while ensuring infrastructure development. ... Read More

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