Page 22 - CIJ Feb 2024 Digital Edition

Cover Story

by Nashik Municipal Waste. of MSW or RDF, we have to firstly, my obligation is 30%
They are operating it well and are get shredders and segregators in of fuel by 25-26 which is resin
looking at mining legacy waste. place. There is a disposable cost reduction. The next year it goes
When it comes to industry, you for the material which you cannot up to 60%. That means I’m going
must pay a consent fee to operate feed to the cement plant. It is like to reduce the consumption of
and give bank guarantees, if there a waste processing facility and fuel. Secondly, upcycling is going
is any accidental discharge. There plants are incurring costs and to be big business. With EPR in
is a penalty imposed in case you there are no savings. Saving is in the picture, even after burning
are polluting. Conversely, even terms of CO2 footprint. in a cement kiln you still need to
though municipal corporations recycle a set quantity of plastics
pollute the environment, the Municipal corporations again and use for your packaging.
river or groundwater, they charge said they are looking With all these regulations, people
citizens for waste collection and at smart solutions for will start using plastic wisely and
waste management. by this process, the entire country,
real-time data of what will be neat and clean.
If instead of using is being collected, Kaustubh Phadke: We
virgin material, you segregated, and recently took an Indian cement
are using recycled disposed of. Your company representative and
material, hypothetically response. a government team from Niti
Aayog, the Bureau of energy
what would be your efficiency and the Department
K Ganesh: The initiative
percentage decrease? should come from the municipal of Science and Technology to
Kaustubh Phadke: In cement, corporations. All other companies Austria and Belgium, where we
recycled material is the fuel. are already working smart. saw the entire value chain of
Carbon dioxide footprint will be The MC of each city needs to waste.
reduced. It will be 8-9% lower have a defined collection centre Right from where it is
than conventional fuel. where a systematic process will collected in the municipal

It does not reduce input cost, ensure all waste is collected corporation to how it goes to
even if you’re getting the right and taken in a graded manner. the waste processing facility
kind of waste. This is because you It should be similar to a private where they made it fit to feed
have to put up a pre-processing industry running its operations. to the incinerator and then to
plant. In terms of coal and pet- They should have data, standard the cement plant. The crux is
coke, you can directly put it into machinery and equipment in that municipal corporations pay
the coal pulveriser and treat it place rather than having people the waste processing facility
as fuel to the kiln but in the case collect the waste and take it to a for segregating and processing
landfill which will again create and the facility pays the cement
legacy waste in a dump yard. plant to dispose of it. It is the
other way around where they are
Other than segregated disposing the waste generated
compartmentalized from the municipal corporation
as that is the MC’s responsibility.
compactors, what There are cement plants earning
machines are around 80-90% on alternate fuel.
required? A similar guideline is here with
MAHUA where they do not
K Ganesh: mention payment directly but
Sorting machines. within 100km it is viable for the
If I’m talking corporations to send to cement
about plastic plants at zero cost. Initiatives
bottles for food- from the corporation end is still
grade applications, pending.

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