Kerala - Kochi   

Waste into biogas

KOCHI: When waste piles up in his backyard and starts stinking beyond tolerable limits, a typical Malayali looks for a plastic carrybag.

For the next step in his ‘waste management’ is wrapping it up in the carry bag and stealthily throwing it away along one of the roads.

It is to change this very attitude that the Thiruvananthapuram-based Biotech, under the Department of Non-conventional Energy Sources, has been propagating domestic biogas plants, which help generate cooking fuel from treated waste, in individual households.

The idea is to encourage scientific treatment of solid waste and organic water rather than searching for that carrybag.

Biotech has so far covered 15,000 households in the State and proposes to install plants in 25,000 more. households in the State during 2008-09, A. Sajidas, director of Biotech, said.

The members of the household are given a user’s manual and special training for the operation of the unit.

District panchayat and local self-government bodies in Ernakulam have shown the biggest interest in the project, he said.

“We have so far installed domestic biogas plants in 2,000 households across 58 panchayats in the district,” he said.

The cost of a domestic biogas unit comes to Rs.10,000. Of this, Rs.2,700 will be Biotech subsidy, while the rest is shared between the local body concerned and the beneficiary.

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