MoU signed to develop waste-to-wealth plants in million plus cities

Tags: Environment National News

The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) and Engineers India Limited (EIL) have signed an MoU for construction of waste-to-energy and bio-methanation projects in million plus cities for "Green Growth" of India.

An overview of the news

• The MoU was signed in the presence of Manoj Joshi, Secretary, MOHUA and Vartika Shukla, CMD, EIL.

• The ministry has decided to set up solid waste processing facilities on a large scale in million plus cities.

• India has 59 million plus cities and to manage the organic/wet fraction of municipal solid waste bio-methanation plants have been proposed in these cities.

• In February 2022, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated Asia's largest municipal solid waste based cow dung plant in Indore, aimed at generating 19,000 kg of bio-CNG gas.

• Bio-methanation plants linked to the Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban 2.0, Gobardhan and SATAT schemes will produce bio-CNG as a renewable energy.

• In the first phase, 25 million plus cities will be selected to develop large scale process plants.

Waste to Energy plants

• Waste-to-energy plants use the dry waste fraction of municipal solid waste and produce renewable energy.

• These plants work by burning waste at high temperatures and using the heat to produce steam.

• The steam drives a turbine which produces electricity.