Chandigarh MC to set up plant to process horticulture waste

The Chandigarh municipal corporation is all set to establish the city’s first horticulture waste processing plant, with the tendering process expected to begin next month.

The plant will solve the perennial problem of the horticulture waste generated from residential areas, sector parks (maintained by the resident welfare associations) and even those maintained by the administration and the MC.

The city generates, on average, 7 to 8 tonnes of horticulture waste per day. This increases exponentially during autumn and spring when trees shed their leaves, when it can reach to over 80 tonnes per day.

The plant will be set up over an area of 1.5 acre at 3BRD, within the premises of the existing sewerage treatment plant site belonging to MC. The project will cost around ₹3.5 crore, including construction of a boundary wall and shed for plants, and is likely to start in July-end.

A part of the plant will be shredder to cut the horticulture waste into small pieces. Then, moisture will be removed from the waste, followed by making small ingots with hydraulic press. These ingots, which is pure wood fibre, will be sold. “These by-products of processing can be sold at around ₹17 per kg,” said an MC official.

Further, MC is going to purchase tractor trolleys dedicated to collection and transportation of horticulture waste from sectors. “These trolleys will be equipped with GPS systems and survey the sectors and collect horticulture waste all day,” said the official.

After several years of neglect, MC has finally taken up the problem of horticulture waste head-on. It had launched the awareness campaign for home composting to encourage residents to take up the “my waste, my responsibility” concept involving recycling of biodegradable waste into manure. Under a pilot project, MC has selected 10 wards, where 200 households per ward were given two composting buckets each.

It is part of MC’s efforts at building up key infrastructure to process waste in the city. MC recently also acknowledged residents’ initiatives in home composting by honouring them with Swachhta awards.

In addition to focusing on 100% door-to-door collection and segregation of waste this time, MC has taken steps to resolve other major issues that contributed to city slipping in Swachh rankings. The restoration of the solid waste processing plant in Sector 25 has been taken up and nearly 60% of work has been completed in the legacy mining at Dadumajra dump site and tenders for the clean-up of 7.5 lakh MT has been floated.

Swacch Survekshan team to visit city today

A Swacch Survekshan team will start reach Chandigarh on Tuesday for a three to four-day visit.

“The team will take stock of public toilets, roads and cleanliness of parks The waste processing plant in Sector 25 can also be one of the review points for them team,” an official said. MC has recently ramped up its efforts to improve the city’s rankings in the survey, which has continuously slipped in the last three-four years.

Segregation at source, full capacity functioning of the solid waste management plant and the dumping ground remain major challenges for the city to better its performance from last year.