State govt looks to adopt Japanese tech for converting waste to energy

Kolkata: The state Municipal Affairs department will explore Japanese technology for conversion of solid waste to energy, with all the landfill sites across the state overburdened with wastes.

"The people in our country and those in Japan have different food habits but I have learnt that a waste-to-energy plant has come up at Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh, with technology inputs from Japan. I will send a team there to examine the effectiveness of the plant. The time has come for us to channelise wastes and recycle it effectively so that it can provide us with some sort of income," said state Municipal Affairs minister Firhad Hakim on the sidelines of the 12th Edition of the Annual Environment and Energy Conclave organised by Bengal Chamber, in association with H Energy.

Hakim said that he would seek the papers of the conclave from the Bengal Chamber

and take note of the deliberations where Hiroyuki Ito

from a leading company in Japan has talked about their technology of converting waste to energy.

Hakim, who is also the state Urban Development minister and Kolkata Mayor, said that Uttarpara Municipality in Hooghly has been successfully doing segregation at source and has set up the infrastructure for converting wet waste into compost.

"The dry waste is being picked up by rag pickers and now channelising this waste is posing a big challenge for us," he said.

The minister said that the government is laying a lot of emphasis to push for electric vehicles across the state in a bid to reduce carbon emissions, which is a major contributor to air pollution.

"We are also encouraging vertical gardens and rooftop gardens in the city. We have already floated tender for a vertical garden under Maa flyover," he maintained.

Hakim also lashed out at the Metro Railway authorities for not taking up the vertical garden project under the flyovers, even though land was provided to them for the purpose. "They have put up advertisements for their own publicity," he said.

Later in the day, while addressing a meeting on solid waste management with ADMs at Subhanno, Hakim reiterated that processing solid waste is a major challenge for all urban local bodies across the state.