Technopark puts in Place self-reliant Waste Management System

TechnoparkToday.com>> India’s largest IT Park is going green with a first-of-its-kind integrated and centralised waste management plant, set to be inaugurated on September 30.

Minister for IT and Industries Shri P K Kunhalikutty will inaugurate Technopark’s eco-friendly Solid Waste Management System, which has had a successful five-month trial run at the 165 acre landscaped IT Park, in the presence of Shri Manjalamkuzhi Ali, Minister for Urban Affairs and Welfare of Minorities.

The IT hub, with 40,000 IT professionals, functions 24 hours, produces 3 tonnes of solid waste every day. The waste management project, which is in its first phase, disposes off the waste on the same day in an eco-friendly, economically viable manner.

Technopark and the companies under it had been studying different waste management systems since December 2011; Technopark was convinced by and zeroed in on a flawless system practised by the CREDAI Clean City Movement.  The waste management system has two bio-gas plants, bio-bins and a plastic shredding unit.

“We were very keen to produce a mindset of reusing and recycling waste, instead of just creating more dumping sites,” said Technopark CEO, Mr  K G Girish Babu. “And towards this end, we undertook training programmes to be able to embark on proper waste management procedures.”

The project started with sorting waste at source. Every company was provided with red, blue and green bins for different types of waste, and repeated campaigns and awareness programmes were conducted to make employees dispose off food, recyclables and non-recyclables in different bins. Technopark’s closed garbage trucks regularly pick up the bins and take it to the treatment plant.

Through the Integrated Rejection Management system of aerobic microorganism composting, 1,000 kg of organic waste is converted into fertiliser. Using the anaerobic digestion method, 2,000 kg of organic waste is converted into biogas through hydraulic pressure. The daily equivalent of 80 kg of Biogas produced in the two biogas plants is now used for the incinerator that burns non-recyclable waste materials like napkins, used tissues and paper cups.

Dry food waste and those with citric content are treated in bio-bins which convert the organic waste into fertilizer through an accelerated decay in 16 days. The fertiliser is used in the vegetable garden around the plant and all over in the campus. The recyclable plastic waste and cardboards are shredded and sold out.

Mr. Girish Babu averred, “The aim and one of the ground rules is also to ‘reduce, reuse, recycle and reject with respect’, and to avoid a sense of aversion towards waste management.”

Principal Secretary to the Department of IT and Industries Shri PH Kurian, Thiruvananthapuram Corporation Mayor Smt K Chandrika, MLA Shri MA Vahid, Chief Secretary Shri Jiji Thomson will attend the inaugural ceremony.