Food waste from Salt Lake to power street lamps in New Town

KOLKATA: New Town Kolkata Development Authority (NKDA) will bring food waste from Sector V in Salt Lake to produce Methane, which in turn will be used to generate electricity. This is the only autonomous body in Bengal that generates electricity from waste.

Two truck load of food waste from sector V reached the Bio- Methanation unit in New Town on Friday.

After weighing the wet waste, the same is fed to a machine for "digestion" for six days in air tight green bullets. Methane is stored in a balloon and this drives two generators to illuminate street lamps along a stretch of about 2 kms.

Debashis Sen, chairman of NKDA said the daily requirement of the plant is around 5 MT. Now, every day New Town generates food waste measuring anything between 3.5 MT to 4 MT and so there is a gap of 1 MT daily.

Now, as food waste will be brought from Sector V, where there are more restaurants and eateries for being an electronic hub.

There will be a steady supply of food waste weighing around 5 MT daily and this will help to produce more Methane.