Bangalore: Readying to transform trash into cash

A waste processing factory in the city is gearing up to more than triple the volume of garbage it processes in a day.

Karnataka Compost Development Corporation (KCDC), at Kudlu, is currently busy in clearing the accumulated waste and is accepting 100 tonnes per day for the past six months, said LN Belavanaki, its managing director. He said they would be able to increase the quantity to 350 tonnes per day once the new unit for installing control chamber was ready. He said currently, they get wet waste from markets such as Madiwala, Banashankari, Jayanagar, Sarakki and Malleswaram.

The KCDC, floated by Karnataka Agro Industries Corporation, BBMP and Karnataka State Cooperative Marketing Federation in 1975, was one of the 13 waste management units in the country. Now, it is the only plant that is working as all the others were closed within a year of starting operation owing to lack of technology to segregate garbage, besides lack of economic viability.

Initially, there were no problems for the KCDC waste management unit, started with an investment of Rs50 lakh. The unit was receiving wet waste of 50 tonnes per day (TPD)  in the beginning and it was supposed to increase the intake capacity to 200 TPD of wet waste. The KCDC unit could become successful because it adopted indigenous, simple, low-cost maintenance technology, which is found to be profitable.

However, the inability of the BBMP to find sufficient landfills to dump the garbage turned the KCDC into a scapegoat. “With the shortage of landfills for dumping the garbage, the then BBMP commissioner directed us to receive excess garbage. We were not in a position to refuse since the BBMP is one of the shareholders of the KCDC. The quantum of garbage increased from 50 TPD to 300 TPD, thus making it difficult for the unit to handle the waste,” recalls C Basaiah, who worked as managing director of the KCDC from 2000 to 2007.

Asia’s biggest
According to Basaiah, the vermi-compost unit, spread across two acres on the KCDC premises, was one of the biggest in Asia. The unit has 200 storage pits to produce vermi-compost. “More than five tonnes of wet waste was used per day for producing vermi-compost. We used to generate revenue by selling the compost to farmers despite no budgetary support from the state government,” he said.

The increase in garbage supply made the residents of Hosapalya and nearby areas stage protests, demanding that the BBMP does not send garbage to the KCDC unit. Their grouse was that open trucks were used to transport the garbage to the KCDC unit, thus littering trash on the roads. “There were various reasons for the protest by the residents. The garbage trucks not only littered the garbage on the roads, but also caused traffic jams. The residents’ main demand was to find an alternative route to bring garbage to the KCDC unit,” Basaiah said.

The garbage supply stopped in 2008, and the unit did not receive waste till recently.

Going strong
In the year 2012-13, the department of agriculture placed order for the supply of 39,000 tonnes of compost. The KCDC has supplied 38,000 tonnes of compost (40% vermi-compost and 60% city compost).

“In an attempt to make use of city garbage for agricultural purpose and keep Bangalore city clean, the KCDC has set a target of producing 40,000 tonnes of compost in 2013-14. We are confident of clearing the existing garbage at our unit within six months,” the MD of the corporation said.

Expressing happiness over the KCDC initiative to resume accepting garbage, Kavitha Baburaj, corporator from Singasandra ward, said residents have stopped complaining against the KCDC unit. “I am happy the KCDC has started receiving wet garbage. I hope all the problems will be solved within a few months,” said Kavitha.