Biomethanation to clean up, light up slum
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| KSRTC buses leaving from Kempegowda bus station. |
By Deepashri Varadharajan
BANGALORE (Jan. 19)—As I and my fellow trainee journalists entered Ejipura Slum in Koramangala, we saw a little girl standing barefoot on a pile of garbage and wet waste. Residents walked over it without even flinching. Bangalore produces nearly 4,000 tons of solid waste every day.
Women lined up to fill water from a common overhead tank, complaining about irregular water supply and electricity, both of which were interlinked, as one cannot operate the motors and bore wells when there is no power supply.
“Sometimes we don’t get electricity for one or two weeks at a stretch,” said Rani, a resident of Ejjipura Slum. “We have to pay 10 or 20 rupees to the BESCOM [Bangalore Electricity Supply Co.] workers to fix the wires.”
‘Urban waste to energy’ project aims to solve solid waste woes
The two major problems in slums of Bangalore are lack of sanitation and irregular supply of electricity.
“Biomethanation plants are helpful in two ways: disposal of wet waste and producing electricity from waste,” said V.N. Puttamurthy , assistant executive engineer at the BBMP’s Solid Waste Department.
The BBMP is planning to set up 16 biomethanation plants in 16 different wards in the city, with each plant capable of producing 1,000 kilowatts of energy and consuming 5 tons of solid waste every day. The project is at the tender stage.
If the “Urban waste to energy” project is a success, the BBMP will extend the setting up of biomethanation plants to 198 other wards in the city.
The BBMP has also planned for another energy project of 10 megawatts capacity in Mandur, Bangalore East Taluuk, that will consume 1,000 tons of solid waste a day.
Puttamurthy added that these projects may later be extended to slums so as to benefit people below poverty line.
Biogas a sustainable source of energy
“Fuel security and environmental concern” have catalyzed the need for sustainable energy sources in the last five years, said Uma Rajarathnam, head of the clean energy and environment cell of Enzen Global, an energy solutions company.
“More than 40 percent of [urban poor] income goes for meeting energy needs, namely cooking lighting and transport,” Uma said.
She said “solar energy” and “urban waste to energy” have potential in a city like Bangalore.
Large scale biomethanation projects such as that of BBMP cost nearly Rs. 50,000 per month for maintenance.
“For noncommercial use, we can use low-cost equipments and set up a plant of 1 meter diameter. Biogas is already being used for vehicles,” said an expert from EnviTec Biogas, a multinational company dealing with the production of energy from biogas.
Enzen Global has installed biomethanation plant for conversion of food waste to biogas in office complexes.
If one noncommercial plant is set up in every slum, it can be a viable source of electricity and also solve the problem of poor sanitation.
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