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Journalism of Courage
Ignoring the problem doesn8217;t always make it go away 8212; especially if it stinks. Like the cops in Hindi flicks who swing into action only at the fag end of the epilogue, government officials appear to have recently woken up to the fact the stench from the city8217;s exponentially rising waste is getting out of hand. Most of the solutions are knee-jerk and insipid. But among those that hold promise is one by Rushin Mehta, the MD of GWCI 8212; Global Waste Conversion Industries.
Thirty-five-year-old Mehta is a Chemistry graduate who, in 1983, migrated along with his family to New York 8212; to have a bite of the Big Apple. Almost immediately he landed a job in a pharmaceutical company and another in the security wing at the JFK airport. Working 20 hours a day, Mehta was soon counted among the arrived8217; bunch of NRI8217;s. In 1988, he shifted focus to the booming wholesale diamond business 8212; and another Indian entrepreneur was all set to teach Americans the art of making money. But the slump in the early nineties rubbedmost of the gloss off the trade of diamonds, and Mehta started looking at options.
And then, in April 1997, BMC looked beyond the matter. After trial runs at Tarapore, Mehta was granted permission to set up two waste management plants at a cost of Rs 30 crores at Deonar and at Gorai. Both plants, which are under construction, can process 1,500 tons of MSW every day, and will recruit 40 ragpickers or quot;sortersquot;, as Mehta prefers to call them. The conversion process will rival that at any high tech plant.
The method: wastefrom all over the city is deodarised, disinfected and then dumped on a tipping floor8217;. quot;We use negative airflow to bring down the pathogen levels,quot; says Mehta. From there, conveyor belts take it through a magnetic field to sort out iron-based waste and on to a waterline, so that plastic waste floats and can be sorted out easily. The sorters take the inorganic waste to recycling plants and as an added incentive, pocket the earnings. But the inorganic waste is forwarded to a compacter, where water is squeezed out and then it goes through a crushing house on to the main process plant, where the contamination levels and NPK Nitrogen-Phosphorous-Potassium values are determined. The data is logged into a computer and the amount of nutrients to be added to make quot;customised fertilisersquot; are computed. Next on the line is the reactor plant, where the fertiliser is generated, and from there on to the dryer and the bagging plant. Long-winded though it may sound, the entire process takes around 45 minutes, as againstthe standard composting methods which require 45 days. 50 per cent of MSW can be converted into fertilisers, and profits will come from it8217;s sale. Though the picture looks rosy, there is a black line around this silver cloud. While in USA the government pays a tipping charge to waste management agencies, here Mehta will have to pay BMC a royalty on the waste! quot;This is how we function. You have to pay them to help them solve their problems!quot; he says. Other difference exist when it comes to public awareness. quot;There, organic and inorganic waste is sorted at the source the home and the factory. But here we get mixed garbage,quot; adds Mehta. And the dumping ground is hardly ever disinfected or sterilised, invariably generating methane fires and epidemics.
But despite all the roadblocks, the experience has been invigorating for Mehta. He is already busy with his next project portable chemical toilets, called Porta-Johns. But without government initiatives and public pressure, that project might just prove to be awasted effort.
