Page 57 - Clean India Journal Magazine June 2019 Issue

WASTE SOLUTIONS

xisting landfills, where increasing area will have to be to source inputs from many
waste is blindly collected converted to landfills. biogas companies. It learned
Eand dumped, were once The waste crisis can be solved that while the technology was
located on the outskirts of, or if municipal corporations and widely available, it needed to be
far outside city limits. As urban citizens adhere to a simple adapted to Indian conditions. In
sprawls expanded, the landfill principle: waste segregation. 2008, it constructed and launched
sites have become part of the city, While organic waste can be a small waste-to-energy biogas
seriously affecting the health of composted or used to produce plant at the site of a landfill in
residents in the neighbourhood. biogas (as Yasasu does), the Solapur, Maharashtra. Over
Poor city planning has led to inorganic constituent can be the years, it experimented with
overflowing landfills which will incinerated to generate electricity what would and wouldn’t work
soon exceed their capacity, if they as well. As Bhand points out, in the local conditions, taking
haven’t already. As urban the right kind of waste needs location-specific factors into
populations continue to be processed using the right account. While this 400-tonne
to grow, more and kind of technology. “Waste is capacity plant was intended
more waste will now a responsibility. It must be to serve as a demonstration to
be generated, processed; whatever extra we municipal corporations, it started
and an get from it (biogas/compost/ commercial operations (injecting
ever- electricity) is a bonus”. electricity generated from biogas
into the grid) from 2013.
The Yasasu story
As laws to tackle waste came Biogas in a box
into being in the late 90s, Bhand’s Traditionally, biogas plants
family-owned company began are high-volume installations

Clean India Journal
www.cleanindiajournal.com 57
June 2019