‘Bio-mining reclaims land in urban zones, opens up job opportunities’ – Times of India

Kolkata: The bio-mining across legacy dump sites in Bengal has led to reclaiming of land in key urban areas and has opened up employment opportunities with the setting up of material recovery facilities (MRFs) across the state. It is a definitive move towards waste to wealth, said Bengal’s environment and water resources investigation and development minister Manas Ranjan Bhunia in his keynote address at ‘RePlanet,’ a TOI conclave on circularity with a specific focus on recycling.
“Bio-mining has already been in progress at 123 legacy dump sites in urban areas of Bengal. Out of 110.8 lakh tonnes of legacy wastes, processing computed for 32.2 lakh tonnes,” he added. Out of 443.9 acres of land, 41.4% of land, that is 183.7 acres, has been reclaimed. Bio-mining is a process of using microorganisms to extract metals of economic value from waste. Bio-mining techniques are also used to clean up sites that have been polluted with metals.
The segregation process in the bio-mining, the minister said, will also tackle the burning problem of plastic wastes, which is a bigger threat to human health. Thanks to the constant generation of methane at landfill sites, the burning of assorted garbage, including plastic is a major problem. More than 30% of the municipal wastes going to dumpsites in the city is plastic waste.
Bhunia also said how Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF) generated from legacy wastes is being utilised in energy-intensive industries like cement plants. The polymeric wastes obtained from dump sites can potentially be utilised in manufacturing Refuse Derived Fuel, which can be used for energy recovery. “RDF of approximately 10% of the legacy wastes is being generated and sent to cement plants for co-processing in Odisha and Chhattisgarh,” added Bhunia.
Among the other initiatives, the minister highlighted that the government has taken steps to introduce alternatives to single-use plastic, compostable plastic, and other forms of eco-friendly items. He said the use of plastic has increased twenty-fold in the past half century and is expected to double again in the next few years.
“We need to adopt a circular economy approach for management of plastic wastes that shall create employment and opportunities,” added Bhunia.
Plastic waste, the minister said, is one of the biggest threats we are all facing. However, fostering circularity in the use of plastics. Circular economy models retained the value of goods as long as possible, reduce in waste and keeping the value of plastic in the economy, without leakage into the natural environment.