Decomposition: February 2015

Interview 2

Interview for decomposition / compost / waste management

The BBMP is a state council that manages 30% of solid waste in Banaglore, India. They have divided the city into eight zones. One of them is Yelahenka, where I live. It has solid waste processing units, which I visited and then interviewed one of the managers in the waste processing unit.

Me. Can you explain the process of how waste is brought into these units?

H.P. The waste is put into plastic bags by households and kept outside each house in the morning, which undergoes a door to door collection starting at about 7 am by auto tippers and push carts. They all meet at a point near the bus station, where the waste gets put into a truck. The truck brings this solid waste into the first processing unit where the dry and wet (food) waste is segregated by the Pourakarmikas (cleaners).

Me. Oh okay. So then after segregation from this unit, does it go to the waste processing units?

H.P. Yes, exactly. We have 2 processing plants here for recycling plastics and metals etc. And in total in Bangalore, BBMP has setup a 15 ton capacity decentralized plants to process organic waste as well as recycle the plastic and metals etc.

Me. Okay. How and where do you process organic waste then?

H.P. Well, the waste from Yelahanka goes to the one ton capacity aerobic composting unit at Maleshwaram market (West Zone). The technology is an organic waste convertor.

Me. And how much of waste do you get daily?

H.P. Um well there is a mix of all types of waste from households as I told you it is not segregated at the source, so all waste is about 350 grams per day. Out of all that organic waste is about 50-80 grams average and Yelahanka's population is about 3 lakh people.

Me. But considering Bangalore is such a big city, and the Maleshwaram flower market, I am sure the organic waste is way more than one ton can process. Do you use any other way to process waste.

H.P. Well, we do other organic process centers in the south parts of the city. And we have been able to manage most of the organic waste but the leftover is scientifically landfilled. However, as you might have heard of the Bangalore landfill crisis, our aim is to adopt a zero waste management policy and reduce landfilling by less that 10% this year.

Me. Yes, landfill is a huge issue in Bangalore now. Can you elaborate on how you aim to adopt zero waste management policy?

H.P. Yes, we have quite a few plans for this. First, we plan to set four large processing plants using technologies such as aerobic composting, converting waste into energy, vermin compositing, biomethanization and scientific landfills that can process upto 1000 metric tones of solid waste every day. Second, we are working on putting up more recycling plants. Third, we are currently using small quantities of plastic waste to construct roads but are coming up with solutions that make 100% waste generated roads. Further, we are developing technologies that convert plastic into diesel. This can be implemented in large scales and has great potential.

Me. Oh those sound like great strategies. Thank you so much for you time. It was great and very insightful to the waste management in our city. Thank you so much.

H.P. Smiles. Thank you.

Decomposition

Sunday 8 February 2015

video outcome

Tuesday 3 February 2015

Interview with Manager of yelahanka waste segregating unit

final outcome-waste2energy (Petra+Kritika)

Prototype -Waste2energy film (Petra+Kritika)

Experimentation on decomposition of money (Petra & kritika)