Railway commissions govt's first waste to energy plant; to turn e waste, plastic into light diesel oil

East Coast Railway has commissioned government's first waste-to-energy plant which will turn ewaste and plastic into light diesel oil in 24 hours, officials said on Thursday. A patented techlogy called "Polycrack" will be used in this waste-to-energy plant, which is first of itskind in Indian Railways and only fourth in India.

"It is world’s first patented heterogeus catalytic process which converts multiple feed stocks into hydrocarbon liquid fuels, gas, carbon and water.

"Earlier, lots of n-ferrous scrap generated from Carri Repair Workshop h efficient method of disposal. As a result, se elements were being disposed by landfills, which h environmentally hazardous impact," said East Coast Railway spokesperson JP Mishra.

He said in this process, pre-segregation of waste is t required to reform waste which can be directly fed into machine to be converted into diesel.

"It has high tolerance to moisture hence drying of waste is t required. Waste is processed and reformed within 24 hours. It is an enclosed unit hence working environment is dust free. Biological decomposition is t allowed as waste is treated as it is received, officer said.

foot print of plant is small hence area required for installing it is less when compared with conventional method of processing. All constituents are converted into valuable energy reby making it zero discharge process , he explained. Gas generated in process is re-used to provide energy to system reby making it self reliant of its energy requirement and also bring down operating cost, officer said.

He also said that re is atmospheric emission during process unlike or conventional methods except for combustion gases which have pollutants less than prescribed rms world over. plant operates at around 450 degrees, making it a low temperature process when compared with or options.

waste-to-energy plant has been constructed in three months at a cost of around Rs 2 crore. Waste generated from Mancheswar Carri Repair Workshop, Coaching Depot and Bhubaneswar Railway Station will be feeder material for this plant. This plant will access 500 kg waste materials per batch, Mishra said.

An estimated income from byproducts generated will be around Rs 17.5 lakh per annum, official said while annual maintenance cost per year will be Rs 10.4 lakh. While this is first such plant over railways, it is fourth in country. first plant is a small one with capacity of 50 kg/day set up by Infosys at Bangalore in 2011. second one is at Moti Bagh, Delhi in 2014 with a capacity of 50 kg per day. third one set up at Hindalco in 2019 with 50 kg capacity per batch.