This bot segregates large-scale municipal waste

An innovation by a Bengaluru startup, two of these machines are already up and running in Bommasandra and Chikkaballapur

Despite the many campaigns held in Bengaluru, large-scale waste segregation remains a challenge. But an innovation is taking the challenge head-on.

In Bommasandra and Chikkaballapur, a machine is segregating the city waste in a bid to stop plastics from entering landfills at a municipal level. It is called TrashBot.

It segregates waste into bio-degradable and non-biodegradable items using mechanical unit operations, programming, pneumatics and size separation on its own. It has an 85% waste segregation achievement, claim the makers. It can segregate waste in capacities of 5, 10, 25, 50, 100 and 200 tonnes and takes 1,000-2,000 square feet of space to install.

It is designed by TrashCon, a company started by Nivedha R M and Saurabh Jain back in October 2017. They have graduated from the Toilet Board Coalition's 'Accelerator' program, which supports entrepreneurs working in 'commercially viable businesses across the sanitation economies.

'The TrashBot segregates home waste and commercial city waste in a way trommels and other waste segregation tech do not. Suppose you have a plastic bag of home waste like vegetable peels, papers, and sambar. When you put it into the machine, it will partially shred the bag to open and use an array of technology (like size-reduction system using size, moisture and wind) to determine different components and segregate them,” says Nivedha.

The machine runs for eight hours in one shift and can do three shifts in one go. “It costs around Rs 1,000 a tonne for the municipality to dump the waste in a landfill but a TrashBot processes 1 tonne of waste at around Rs 60,” she compares the economics of the two approaches.

DH asked Vijyalaxmi S, junior health inspector of the Bommasandra Town Municipal Council if this machine holds promise. At Bommasandra, a 10-tonne Trashbot is processing four tonnes of waste every day.

Vijyalaxmi says, “The waste management has become easier. The wet waste generated here is sent to piggeries, fisheries, and poultry farms. While it is not a completely sustainable method of waste management, it is certainly helping in avoiding the plastics from reaching landfills.”

The bio-degradable waste segregated by the machine can either be composted or diverted to make biogas. On the other hand, the company collects the non-biodegradable waste to make WOW boards out of it. These boards are laminated, painted, screwed or drilled to achieve a wood-like look. These boards can be recycled up to 13 times, they claim.