Two new material recovery facilities launched in Gurugram

The Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) and its waste concessionaire Ecogreen launched two material recovery facilities (MRFs) at Sector 44, and Ullawas village near Sector 61 on Sunday. An MRF is a centre where glass, plastic, metal, paper, cardboard, and rubber waste materials are segregated and handed over to MCG empanelled scrap dealers for recycling.

The two new MRFs were inaugurated by MCG mayor Madhu Azad. “Different waste materials will be removed separately at these MRFs. This will expedite waste management and make Gurugram cleaner. These MRF centres will prove to be a milestone in achieving a better ranking for Gurugram in Swachh Survekshan 2023,” Azad said. The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs announced the results of the Swachh Survekshan Survey 2022 on Saturday. Gurugram ranked 19 among 382 cities with a population between 1-10 lakh. This is the city’s highest-ever ranking since the central government survey was launched in 2015.

Garbage is segregated into eight different categories and a large-scale compost unit is set up for converting organic waste into compost at MRFs. The first such facility in the city and in Haryana was opened in Badshahpur in February this year. The second such facility was opened by the MCG in Sector 11 a few months later in July.

“A material recovery facility is a centre where waste is brought in a segregated manner and is then further segregated into various categories according to their reusability and recyclability. This is a progressive step towards decentralising the waste collection process in the city and reducing the amount of waste that is transported to the Bandhwari landfill site,” an official spokesperson for Ecogreen said.

According to Ecogreen officials, the facility in Ullawas is spread over one acre of land where the waste will be segregated in a semi-mechanised manner at present, Trommel machines will be installed in the future to help with mechanised screening and segregation of waste.

The facility has a capacity of processing around 100 tonnes of waste daily and will receive waste from MCG’s zone 3 areas — Golf Course Road, Mall Mile, Sushant Lok 1, DLF Phases 1,2,3,4, and 5, Sectors 44 and 52, and Wazirabad.

Ecogreen officials further said that the Sector 44 facility is located on a 2000sq.m plot and can process around 50 tonnes of waste per day. Waste collected from areas in MCG wards 32, 34 and 35 will be brought to the facility for segregation.

“We are working towards taking a sustainable approach to handling the rising challenge of fresh waste in the city that gets transported to Bandhwari. MRFs will immensely help in resolving this challenge and will promote segregation of waste at the source. We are also running mass campaigns to make people aware of waste segregation at source,” PSN Reddy, chief operating officer (COO), Ecogreen, said.

The four MRFs can cumulatively process around 450 tonnes of waste per day. According to the MCG’s own estimate, the city produces around 1000 tonnes of fresh waste every day.