Pacchanady: ‘Legacy waste’ to be cleared through bio-mining

With the Cabinet clearing an allocation of Rs 73.73 crore to clear 9 lakh tonnes of ‘legacy waste’ at a landfill site in Pacchanady, on the outskirts of the city, decks have been cleared for disposing of waste through ‘bio-mining’ and ‘bio-remediation’ method.

Anticipating approval from the state government, tenders had been floated for the disposal of waste through bio-mining and bio-remediation methods. “August 30 is the deadline for the tender,” Mangaluru City Corporation (MCC) Commissioner Akshay Sridhar told DH.

The waste on the landfill site, spread over 42 acres of land, had slid in August 2019 wreaking havoc in the lives of many families residing downhill. The garbage slide had covered 13.5 acres of horticulture and private land apart from revenue land.

The MCC had sent a detailed project report to the Directorate of Municipal Administration to clear the garbage through bio-mining method at an estimated cost of Rs 50.78 crore excluding recycling and other processes.

Accordingly, Rs 19.16 crore was required for machinery and other initial processes. A sum of Rs 54.57 crore was required for processing the garbage. The MCC is expecting Rs 22.95 crore income from the compost prepared from the waste, plastic recycle and others.

The bio-mining technique will be used for clearing garbage dumped since many decades as per the guidelines of legacy waste management submitted by the Central Pollution Control Board.

The commissioner said that bio-waste from the landfill site will be converted into compost while plastic, glass and others will be used for recycling.

“Following the Cabinet’s approval, the work will be accelerated. It is a four-year project to clear the waste and no work can be taken up during the monsoon in Mangaluru,” he added.

To ensure that no further sliding of garbage took place in Pacchanady, the MCC had constructed a seven-meter-high retaining wall. A tank was also constructed to collect wastewater.