Locals suggest alt solutions for SWM issue

After the Bombay High Court (HC) rejected their petition seeking relocation of a garbage processing unit from the Hadapsar Industrial Estate to an alternate site, the residents have once again highlighted the poor state of waste management coordination between the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) and the Pune Cantonment Board (PCB) and are also giving alternate solutions to the issue.

- Indu Bhagat

Speaking to The Free Press Journal (FPJ) on the issue, Ashish Vaishnav, director at Gangotri Energy, focused on decentralised solutions to waste processing. He alleged that the residents are suffering because of the garbage dump. The authorities are sending dry waste from the Hadapsar ramp cement plant to Chandrapur in Vidarbha and Karnataka to make refuse-derived fuel (RDF), a high-calorific value fuel made from processing dry, non-recyclable waste like plastics, paper, and textiles, he told the FPJ. “We are suggesting why transport this dry waste, as the transportation cost is too high. We can simply process this waste here by sending it to industrial boilers and co-firing them with other fuel, and the boilers follow the CBCB