City NGO generates power from IT firm's kitchen waste

ACTS (Agriculture, Crafts, Trades and Studies) Ministries, a Bible training institute and a centre offering vocational training, has shown the way to self-reliance in power. It has also found a solution to the problem of waste disposal by generating power using kitchen waste generated by IT giant Wipro.

The institute at Rayasandra near Parappana Agrahara is said to be the only organisation that runs on power-generated with kitchen waste.

Terming this an unique concept, Dr Ken Gnanakan, General Director-ACTS, said it was aimed at linking the urban concern about solid waste management to the rural requirements like compost, electricity and employment. This involves various activities such as source segregation, collection, transportation and safe disposal of solid waste, biogas generation, various types of composting and generating electricity from biogas.

Known as water-jacketed floating gas holder model, this unit has an installed capacity of 10 kilo volts (kv). A portion of it is used to light up the institute which houses about 80 members. The plant, which was set up eight years ago, began producing electricity using waste generated in a community toilet.

K Kiran Kumar, Secretary, S K G Sangha, a non-profit organisation, which is helping to establish such unique projects by offering technology, says that after the community toilet constructed by ACTS was demolished for a road project, the organisation thought of an alternative to generate power using biomethanisation process. “The present plant generates 200 cubic metre of gas which is sufficient to generate the required power to not only light up the institute, but also pump the surplus power into the State grid,” he said.

“Under this project, wastes collected from various collection points are transported to our processing facility at Rayasandra, which is about five km from Hosur Road. The cooked food waste collected separately at source is stocked in closed containers. Primary segregation of waste is done during transportation, which is followed by a secondary segregation in the processing facility.

The waste is segregated as inorganic recyclables (metals, recyclable plastic, glass, etc) and non-recyclables (leather, non-recyclable plastic, tetra packs, etc) and organic waste. The inorganic recyclables are sent for specific recycling process through scrap dealers. Non-recyclable materials are collected in gunny bags and are stored in separate storage area for disposal,” explained Gnanakan.

The organic waste is processed using pit composting, vermicomposting and windrow composting methods. The pit composting process is planned in such a way that the material is allowed to be inside the pit for six months.The process will go on as a cycle, so that  after the sixth month, the first pit can be opened and filled with fresh waste. The food waste is fed to the biogas plant for generating gas which is used for cooking and producing electricity.

 The 12-kw biogas generator runs for about six hours 45 minutes per day. Sludge coming out of the biogas plant is partially filtered and reused for mixing the food waste. The rest of the sludge is processed in drying beds and is used for agriculture. The organic waste is converted into vermicompost and used as manure for the institute’s agricultural land. “About one tonne of manure is collected every month after generating gas and power,” said  one of the co-ordinators.