Waste-to-energy plant on the anvil in Alevoor.

The Udupi City Municipal Council (CMC) has floated tenders for the preparation of a detailed project report for setting up a waste-to-energy plant at Alevoor.

The CMC wants to set up a 70 tonne-per-day waste-to-energy plant, adopting pyrolysis technology for scientific processing of solid waste on Design, Build, Finance, Operate and Transfer (DBFOT) basis.

Udupi city, with a population of 1.25 lakh, generates about 55 tonnes of garbage daily. Of this, 7.12 tonnes is plastic waste, comprising carry bags and cups. Nearly 59 per cent of the waste generated in the city is organic, while the rest is inorganic.

There is a provision of door-to-door garbage collection in the city. There are about 32,000 households in the city and door-to-door waste collection is being done from about 70 per cent of these houses.

The waste is being collected by self-help groups. A fee of Rs. 30 per house per month is charged, while an amount of Rs. 60 per month is charged from commercial establishments.

Waste from the remaining 30 per cent of houses is not being collected as they are scattered, while some residents dispose the garbage in their own gardens.

The garbage collected is being disposed at the Solid Waste Management Plant (SWMP), located on 22 acres of land at Karvalu in Alevoor village, about eight kilometres from the city. Presently, the CMC spends more than Rs. 1,300 (including wages, vehicle cost and transportation charges) to process one tonne of garbage.

K. Srikanth Rao, CMC Commissioner, said that after the project report is submitted, the work on setting up the waste-to-energy plant is expected to start by the end of March 2015. The setting up of the plant is expected to take about a year. It will come up in an acre of land within the SWMP.


THE HINDU