The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) took a significant step to convert the Mulund dumping ground into oil or pellets by setting up two plants at the site.
For this, the civic body decided of processing 70 lakh tonnes of waste at the dumping ground. However, in the past two years, only 20.27 lakh tonnes of the waste has been processed.
This development came after the civic body worked setting up energy plant on the Gorai dumping ground two years ago.
Of the two plants the BMC will set up, one will be a RDF (refuse derived fuel) unit where 200 tonnes of SCF will be processed per day to convert it into pellets. The pellets can be used as a substitute for fossil fuels in industries like cement plants.
The plant will be of pyrolysis where 20 tonnes of plastic will be processed every day. Pyrolysis is the common technique used to convert plastic waste into energy, in the form of solid, liquid and gaseous fuels.
Though the BMC is in talks with cement and power industries to accept the end products, there are a limited number of cement industries accepting SCF recovered from dump sites.
During the processing of the waste, more than 2 lakh tonnes of scrap combustible fractions (SCF) such as plastic, fibre, wood, etc. were obtained. The SCF mainly contains plastic and needs different treatment.
As per directions from the central government on processing SCF, BMC have given 15,000 tonnes to the plastic processing industry. They may convert it into granules or oil, an official stated.
The project to process the waste at Mulund dumping ground was awarded in 2018 for six years, but started in 2021 after the contractor received permissions from various authorities and procured machinery. As per the contract, the rest of the waste, over 50 lakh tonnes, has to be processed in two years.
The earlier deadline to close the dumping ground was October 2024, now it has been postponed to June 2025. The Mulund dumping ground stopped accepting garbage in 2018.
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