Chennai: Success of four bio-methanation plants at crematoriums of North Chennai has encouraged Greater Chennai corporation to propose two such plants of high capacity in Perambur slaughter house. Once functional, all the six-bio-gas plants in the city would cut short 21 tonnes of waste each day.
It has been a year since a 2-tonne capacity plant at Pulinathope was inaugurated to convert the waste from the commercial complexes into the energy. The corporation, which is conducting trial runs to three such plants at Otteri, Ambattur and Anna Nagar will soon utilise the same technology at Perambur plants. “As the animal waste generated in Perambur is high, two plants of 5-tonne capacity each is proposed,” said a corporation official.
For each tonne of segregated waste, 80-100 units of electricity and 80 kg of manure can be generated. The 5,000 tonnes of waste generated in the city have created towers of garbage at Kodungaiyur and Perungudi dump yard. Bhabha Atomical Research Centre, which shared the technicality for the project, is keen on augmenting it, considering the demand. J Daniel Chellappa, senior scientist, technical coordination, BARC, said, “The energy generated is used to light up the high max lights in the cremation centres. We will be extending it to cremate the bodies in all centres by setting up the pipelines and functioning of streetlights.
This should be a role model and should be decentralised to many places.”
G. Suresh, in-charge of the bio-gas plant at Velangadu burial ground said, “We no longer use electricity to cremate bodies as the fuel generated through one tonne of segregated waste could be used for four bodies, besides using for high max lights.”
M. Muralidharan, conservancy supervisor of Otteri plant said, “We convert over 2.5 tonnes of segregated waste each day, through food and vegetable waste collected from Anna Nagar and Otteri.”
