Kochi: Over a year after a massive fire broke out at the Brahmapuram landfill in Kochi — choking the entire city — the solid waste plant present at the site has completed the treatment of over 40 percent of the 8.5 lakh metric tonnes (MT) of total legacy waste dumped here. According to the Kochi Municipal Corporation (KMC), approximately 2.93 lakh MT of waste had been treated as of 15 June, 2024, emptying 11 acres of land.
Apart from legacy waste — i.e. waste that has been collected or accumulated over a number of years — treatment of organic waste has also begun at Brahmapuram.
Work is also underway for the construction of a compressed bio gas (CBG) plant for waste treatment.
The Brahmapuram landfill, spread over 100 acres and located nearly 16 km from the heart of Kochi, has been a site of multiple fires over the years. In 2023, the fire that broke out at the site on 2 March, lasting over 12 days till 14 March, resulted in fumes and toxic chemicals engulfing the city.
Kochi resident Shahjahan, who lives about 4 km away from the Brahmapuram plant, said, “We didn’t understand the seriousness of the issue at first.”
“After two days, heavy smoke had engulfed the city. We were experiencing breathing difficulties, and irritation in the eyes, which lasted over a week,” said the 46-year-old, adding that they didn’t consult a doctor and were only following the civic body guidelines at the time.
While the authorities took days to put out the fire, the issue also brought to light the gaps in the city’s waste management system.
In November 2023, KMC had signed a Rs 118 crore agreement with Pune-based Bhumi Green Energy for the biomining of legacy waste. Biomining is the scientific process of excavation, treatment, segregation and utilisation of legacy waste. The company has 16 months to complete the project and says they are expecting to finish the work by May next year before the southwest monsoon. The local body elections in the state are scheduled to be held next year.
According to Abhijeet Raikar, the project head with Bhumi Green Energy at Brahmapuram, the company employs an eight-step process to treat biowaste. This process begins with arranging waste into windrows (rows of piles) and ends with the disposal of the byproducts.
Bhumi Green Energy has, so far, dispatched 45,000 MT of refuse-derived fuel (RDF), the main byproduct of the process, to various cement plants in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.
“We have been given 16 months to complete this. Even in this rainy season, we are working at 60 percent capacity,” Raikar told ThePrint.
The work is being monitored by a committee that includes the chief engineers at the Local Self Government Department (LSGD) and the pollution control board; the director of Suchitwa Mission; and a professor at the Cochin University of Science and Technology (CUSAT). The quality of the biomining work is being inspected by the CSIR-National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI).
Apart from legacy waste treatment, the corporation has also begun treating fresh food waste for pet feed at the organic waste plant in Brahmapuram, which uses the black soldier fly (BSF) larvae — a commonly used organism for processing food waste. According to a senior official at the KMC, the BSF plant processes up to 50 tonnes of waste per day.
“Work is underway for the construction of the compressed biogas plant at Brahmapuram by the Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) for the treatment of fresh food waste. Once completed, the plant will be able to process up to 150 tonnes of waste per day,” the official said.
With the Kochi corporation working to establish a better solid waste management system in the city, locals are hopeful things will change.
“The corporation was not collecting any waste for a month following the fire at Brahmapuram. Residents were dumping waste on the roadside during nighttime as there was no space at home to store it. The surroundings were filthy,” recalled 48-year-old Preetha, a resident of Alinchuvadu locality, located about 8 km from the Brahmapuram plant.
Preetha said the city’s waste management system needs to be more efficient as the corporation hasn’t yet begun collecting fresh food waste from many neighbourhoods in the city outskirts, forcing them to dump it wherever convenient.
(Edited by Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri)
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