KMC importing waste-to-energy equipment

Kathmandu, August 3

Three waste-to-energy equipment are on their way to Nepal in separate heavy trucks that left Pune, India on July 26.

Earlier, the Kathmandu Metropolitan City had decided to import waste- to-energy equipment with the aim of generating 14 kilowatts of electricity from daily waste collected in the Kathmandu Valley.

According to KMC, the three trucks have reached Delhi today as they were moving only at night due to busy traffic during the day time.

Rabin Man Shrestha, chief of the environment section at KMC and director of Sustainable Solid Waste Management Project, said it could take about two weeks more for the trucks to enter the Kathmandu Valley.

“It is likely to take two more weeks for the equipment to arrive in the capital as the trucks are being driven at low speed and only during the night. Road obstructions due to floods and landslides and customs hassles have been delaying them further,” Shrestha told The Himalayan Times. He said if the equipment reached Kathmandu by mid-August, the KMC could complete installation works by the end of the month.

The system will be able to hold three tonnes of garbage for 21 days in the preliminary stage. After the preliminary stage, the system will consume three tonnes of solid waste per day, producing 14 kilowatts of electricity. The installation process would begin after the machines arrive.

KMC’s initiative is part of a one-year pilot project supported by the European Union. KMC has already allocated space on its office premises where the three waste-to-energy equipment will be installed. According to the metropolitan city office, the three machines cost Rs 18,200,000.

“We have set everything here to generate electricity from waste,” chief of the environment division of KMC Shrestha said, adding, “The electricity generated from the plants would be used by the KMC office.”

Besides, the KMC is planning to replicate the project in other municipalities if the one-year pilot project succeeds. According to the KMC Spokesperson Gyanendra Karki, other municipalities have also expressed their interest in the project.

KMC hopes that the waste-to-energy project would make waste management in the Kathmandu Valley easier. It said the project was just a preliminary effort to produce electricity from waste. Besides generating power, the KMC also plans to produce 96 kg of gas, 300 kg of bio-organic fertiliser, and 13,500 liters of purified water daily from the garbage collected at Teku transfer station.