North corp invites firms to bid for combustible trash at Bhalswa
NEW DELHI : The North Delhi Municipal Corporation has floated an all-india tender inviting industrial units to utilise the “combustible but non-recyclable waste” recovered from biomining of the Bhalswa landfill.
The civic body is eyeing cement companies, thermal power plants and Waste-to-energy (WTE) facilities that can use the waste in their furnace, senior officials of the corporation said.
At least 50% of the trash recently recovered from the massive landfill through mechanical segregation is just “old cloth, soiled paper, contaminated plastics, rubber, tyre, thermocol and wood,” the officials said.
This is collectively called Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF), which even the Solid Waste Management (SWM) Rules of 2016 say must be used by companies that use non-renewable coal or wood as fuel, they said.
“RDF should form at least 5% of the fuel combination of such units that have a landfill in 100 km vicinity as per the SWM Rules,” a senior municipal engineer said, requesting anonymity.
About 20,000 metric tonne of waste has been segregated and neatly piled up in rows at the Bhalswa landfill near GT Karnal Road since October 1. Six trommel machines (large cylindrical sieves) were used to sort the waste on orders of the National Green Tribunal (NGT).
The entire landfill, in place since 1984, holds 70 lakh metric tonne of waste.
“We believe it is a first-of-itskind project in Delhi, whereby we have called upon companies to take our non-inert and nonbiodegradable waste,” said the north corporation commissioner, Varsha Joshi. “We have a pre-bid meeting for it tomorrow (Tuesday) and will see how many companies from across the country come and decide what the financial dynamics of the project would be.”
A senior corporation official said they are hoping that the trash would meet the companies’ desired calorific value (heat/ energy produced on burning).
“They will likely send a sample of our RDF trash to laboratories to test if its caloricity falls between 1500-4500 kcal/kg. That is when it is able to generate enough heat to operate a boiler in a cement kiln or thermal power plant. Cement kilns use the boiler to turn calcium carbonate stones into lime and thermal power plants need it to churn turbines that generate electricity,” a municipal engineer said.
Another apprehension officials have is that interested companies may ask the north body to incur cost of RDF transportation to far-off states. “Delhi-ncr doesn’t have any cement kilns while coal-based thermal power plants here, Badarpur and Indraprastha, have been shut. The nearest cement plant we have are in Kotputli (Rajasthan) and Bilaspur (Himachal Pradesh),” said an official.
“Transporting the RDF to such places will incur considerable costs,” he said.
ABOUT 20,000 METRIC TONNE OF WASTE HAS BEEN SEGREGATED AND NEATLY PILED UP IN ROWS AT THE BHALSWA LANDFILL NEAR GT KARNAL ROAD