BENGALURU: At a corner of the basketball court in Mount Carmel College (MCC), a small facility uses dried leaves and food waste to produce manure, day in and day out. Though a waste-processing unit sounds like a smelly affair, the mechanism involved in the unit ensures that little or almost no odour emanates from it.
While there are many such initiatives across the city to tackle garbage crisis, they are relatively rare in academic institutions. By its efforts, MCC is not only addressing the waste-segregation problem, but is also generating a small revenue.
Dr Helen Roselene of the Department of Environmental Science, says that the unit became operational a few months ago, and is among the several waste-segregation units on the campus. It has composting and vermicompost units inside its campus.
The recent addition to its segregation units is the organic-waste converter. Unlike the slow decomposition process in the first two units, the converter turns garbage to manure in a matter of hours.
Explaining the process employed in the converter, Helen said it uses thermophilic bacteria to break down the organic waste. “Dry leaves and food waste are loaded inside, and shredded into small pieces inside a chamber. This is then passed to another chamber where the bacteria acts on the waste and converts it to manure at around 200-220 degree celsius,” she said.
The compost was of a very good quality and is being used by the college and college staff for gardening, she said. Dry leaves and waste generated from college canteens and hostels are being used for the plant.
The college has also regulated the use of paper and plastic cups to reduce waste generation, she added.
Constraints
Though a large section of the students have welcomed the initiative of waste segregation and conversion to manure, some students have reservations. On condition of anonymity, they complained that banning the use of paper and plastic cups at one go was problematic. “They should have done it in a phased manner. It’s not easy to get cups to drink tea or coffee,” they said.
