Vijayawada: Slowly but surely, the Vijayawada Municipal Corporation is turning garbage into wealth by recycling the various types of waste discarded by the citizens.
The VMC has its task cut out; the city generates about 500 metric tonnes of garbage per day and there is no space to dump it.
This was the primary reason behind the VMC starting five separate plants in the city, with the sole purpose of turning waste into wealth.
The VMC established the construction debris processing plant at Singhnagar in November 2018. The plant is being jointly operated by Pro Enviro C&D Waste Management Company and the VMC. The capacity of the unit is about 200 tonnes and it processes nearly 70 tonnes of debris every day. The debris is processed into 40 mm, 20mm and 6 mm metal, filling sand, bricks and vapour blocks, parking tiles etc.
To clear the about 100 tonnes of solid waste that is discarded by the people every day, the VMC authorities process it and make organic fertilizers with the help of various compost centres established in March 2018 at Kabela, Urmilanagar, APICC Colony, Rajiv Gandhi wholesale market. A new centre commenced operations at Ajithsinghnagar from November 2018.
The VMC is also processing about 30 to 40 tonnes of solid waste per day as compost in the city. For this, the VMC spent the '1.6 crore sanctioned by the state government.
The VMC authorities faced several problems trying to dispose the plastic generated in the city; finally, it was decided to recycle it.
The Corporation started doing so by establishing the ‘Material Recovery Facility Centre’ at Ajithsinghnagar.
With the financial support of Coco-Cola company, the VMC started processing plastic waste. As of now it recycles five tonnes of plastic waste by turning it into many types of pellets and granules. The plant is maintained by the Sri Foundation of Hyderabad.
The civic body has also concentrated on clearing the 16 tonnes of vegetable waste and four tonnes of animal waste with the help of the bio-methanisation plant which is maintained by Arumugam BioEnergy of Tamil Nadu. The project cost is of '2.15 crore and the state government is bearing the expenses. The plant produces 1,500 m3 of methane gas with the combination of nitrogen and hydrogen sulphate.
Another major operation is the BioMining project, which began in July 2018. The project involves segregation of collected waste into separate sections.
The project involves clearing of waste accumulated in 32 acres of land. The contract was allotted to Zigma Global Environ Solutions of Erode in Tamil Nadu.
The contractor has so far segregated waste in nearly 16 acres.
