BANGALORE: As an ecofriendly drive and a way to enrich resources from what is otherwise garbage, the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has initiated measures to convert these waste products into useful materials which are an essential part of daily needs.‘Express’ lists how waste is not always a ‘waste’.GLOW FROM KITCHEN LEFTOVERSEvery day more than 5,000 tonnes of garbage is collected across the city, out of which, at least 40 per cent is produced from kitchen waste. Kitchen wastes such as vegetable peels, fruit peels, flowers, coffee and tea powder, egg shells, cooked or raw rice, stale curries, waste milk products and bones can be converted in to electricity.Sources from BBMP environment department said that through biomethanation, a process to convert kitchen waste to methane gas, electricity can be generated.This is said to be first-of- its-kind in Karnataka.“We are doing it on a trial basis. State government also has plans to adopt the same in other city corporations,” official said.With 5 tonnes of kitchen waste, nearly 250 street lamps can be illuminated at once for upto 12 hours.” To begin with, we will start at 16 units which altogether produces electricity to lit up around 4,000 street lamps,” the official said.BBMP has called for tender from private parties.“We are yet to decide the location where these units can be set up,” the official added.The Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike will also utilise rotten vegetable and fruits from various markets across Bangalore, which is a good source to produce methane gas.ORGANIC WASTE TO BLOOMBBMP also plans to produce manure from organic waste.Organic Waste Converter (OWC) unit converts wet waste to end product, which can be used as fertiliser for gardening and agricultural purposes. According to sources, they plan to set up six organic waste converters near Dorekere, Attur lake, Chinapanahalli lake and other places.BBMP will utilise two tonne of organic waste that includes dry leaves and kitchen waste.“We need 1,000 square metre space to set up organic waste converter unit.The manure produced after combustion, is useful for gardening purpose,” an official said.BBMP plans to utilise manure in all the 1,000 parks, which comes under it.It can be recalled that BBMP has adopted a similar process in its parks.Through dried leaves collected from parks, Palike is producing manure using organic waste converters. This has saved at least 50 per cent of manure’s cost to BBMP.ON SPOT DISPOSALBBMP is plans to open dry waste collection centres across the city, where dry wastes are collected at the door step, segregated and disposed by recycling on spot.Palike in association with ITC, a private firm, will collect dry wastes from markets, households, road sides, commercial complexes, apartments and segregate.The Palike will set up 30 collection centres in another two months.Also, BBMP will rope in rag pickers for this project to segregate the waste.
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