Composting reduces waste sent to landfills by 300 tonnes a day

Dumping of garbage mounts in Kodungaiyur and Perungudi landfills has reduced by 200 to 300 tonnes every day owing to various composting measures initiated by the Chennai Corporation.

Civic officials said that they have been sending around 4,700 tonnes of garbage every day instead of sending around 5,000 tonnes for the past few weeks. “We have been providing composting structures in city parks and now more than 350 parks have the structures. To cut down the expense of constructing concrete composting structures, we have also converted unused plastic water tanks into composting pits,” an official said.

Apart from water tank composting pits, the civic body is also installing mulching pits and ringwell composting structures. The Corporation has plans to compost horticultural waste collected in the parks as well as wet waste collected from houses around the parks. As per the data available, the civic body had sent as much as 5,353 tonnes on November 28, 2018, to the landfills, whereas the authority sent only 4,580 tonnes on May 17, 2019. City’s average waste sent to the landfills from January to April is 5040 tonnes per day.

The official added that the civic body has tightened its grip against the bulk waste generators (BWG) such as big commercial establishments and multi-storeyed apartments who generate more than 100 kilograms of waste every day. “Solid waste management rules mandate the bulk waste generators to compost their waste within their premises. As of now, we have identified as many as 3,125 bulk waste generators and of them, more than 200 already carry out composting. We are taking steps to increase the numbers,” the official added.

The Chennai Corporation already started bio-mining in erstwhile dumpsites in Athipattu, Pallikaranai and Sathangadu to reclaim the land and to earn revenue from legacy waste. The civic body also has plans to set up waste-to-energy plants in Kodungaiyur and Perungudi landfills by incinerating the waste heaped for over several years.

“While, the waste-to-energy plant projects and bio-mining would reclaim the land, upscaling composting would reduce the waste dumped at the sites. We are trying to identify new spots to set up more composting pits and to increase the capacity to 1,000 tonnes,” the official said. Presently, the civic body has as many as 3,324 composting pits with a combined capacity of 364 tonnes. In another move to reduce the quantity of garbage dumped in landfills, the civic body has been operating 64 resource recovery centre (RRC) in several locations to segregate reusable items from garbage. Plastic waste segregated is being sent to power plants to be used as fuel.

The official explained that 50 per cent of waste collected in the city is wet waste (food, vegetables, horticulture waste), which could be composted. Remaining waste is categorised under the paper, wood, rags, cloths, plastic, leather, rubber, glass, ferrous and non-ferrous waste. A substantial amount of waste collected in the city is construction waste.

Meanwhile, the Chennai Corporation has taken steps to procure 400 battery operated tricycles to perform door-to-door collection. “As many as 20 battery vehicles have arrived and they are being used in a few locations. These vehicles would help in transporting wet waste to the composting centres quickly. This will help waste degrade faster,” the official said.

Apart from implementing new projects, the civic body also is coordinating with the NGOs such as Consumer Action Group (CAG) and Paperman. “Even Airport Authority of India (AAI) also has funded composting centre near Meenambakkam,” said the official.

Matthew Jose, the founder of Paperman said that the organisation has been collecting plastic waste from the garbage transit points to be used as fuel. “We are collecting at least 200 tonnes of plastic waste in the city per month,” he said.