Bio mining : Bio-mining project at Mandur landfill in Bangalore starts late

The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) - the administrative body responsible for civic amenities and some infrastructural assets of the Greater Bangalore metropolitan area - has been hunting for a solution to the Mandur landfill problem for which the city civic body had also engaged two private firms to reclaim the landfill. Earlier in 2012, Srinivas Gayathri Resource Recovery set up a waste-to-energy plant but the project did not take off. Another company, Organic Waste India PVT LTD, had also set up a 300-tonne compost facility at Mandur which started its operation in 2013.

The city municipal corporation has now taken steps towards bio-mining the accumulated waste in the landfills which will take around five years to complete. The landfill has about 2 million tonnes of garbage, which was dumped between 2008 and 2014, according to the Bangalore Mirror report.

To clean off the accumulated waste and debris over the years of dumping at Mandur landfill, the municipal corporation has split the project into two packages which include north and south.

A Tamil Nadu-based firm Zigma Global Environ Solutions Pvt Ltd is learnt to have expressed interest in the project which will about five years to complete.

According to an official, the bio-mining process comprises four steps which include excavation of legacy waste, thereafter stabilising the waste through bioremediation, segregation of excavated waste, sustainable management through recycling, co-processing and safe disposal.