CCC garbage treatment plant to start operation soon

The Garbage Treatment Plant at the CCC dumping ground at Ananda Bazar at Halishahar. PHOTO: Zobaer Hossain Sikder

Chittagong City Corporation (CCC) has installed the plant.

The pilot project at the CCC garbage dumping ground at Halishahar had gone into operation on the experimental basis producing some five tons of fuel from rubbish two months back.

"The plant is now producing fuel on experimental basis and is ready to be opened for formal operation at any convenient time," said Mayor ABM Mohiuddin Chowdhury.

"CCC set up the plant under a waste management scheme to produce fuel side by side with waste management," he said while he was talking to this correspondent.

The project was implemented completely with our own technology and manpower at a minimum cost, he said adding that the CCC also had plans to produce fertiliser (compost) from the by-product at the plant.

"The process for producing compost from the same plant will start soon after it goes to formal operation," he said.

The mayor said that CCC would market the fuel produced from garbage at around Tk 80 per mound.

CCC was not much concerned about the profit as waste management was the main objective of the project.

"The city produces over 30 tons of garbage daily and this plant will help CCC manage the huge quantity of rubbish. Besides, it will bring in an 'extra benefit' meeting demand of fuel and fertiliser of the city dwellers, at least to some extent," the mayor said.

The CCC took up the pilot project in early 2004 to complete it at a cost of Tk 1 crore in six months.

But the project could not be completed within the stipulated time as the cost exceeded the budget by some Tk 50 lakh due to non-availability of machinery. Frequent outage was also blamed for the delay.

"We had to make by ourselves the dryers, cutters, moulder, conveyors, three-role squeezing machines and all that the plant required," said CCC Executive Engineer (Mechanical) Abul Hasnat, in-charge of the plant.

"The cost also can be kept minimum as CCC has its own workforce to do that," he said.

He, however, said, initially the plant will produce some five tons of fuel a day and take some time to go for full production (ten tons a day).

CCC sources said that garbage like papers, polythene, rope, pieces of glass, banana tree leaves and rotten vegetables would be used in the plant as raw materials to produce fuel.

After successful implementation of the project, CCC has taken an initiative to set up more such plants at the other dumping spots in the port city, sources said.