Kanpur is the commercial capital of Uttar Pradesh and remains one of the oldest industrial townships of North India. There is a big problem of solid waste management in Kanpur. But, the recent pact between Ato Z company and Kanpur Nagar Nigam is going to open the door for Green and Clean Kanpur. In Kanpur, this will be Asia's largest integrated municipal solid waste management project. The main aim of the project is to utilise the garbage after segregation and recycling as organic fertiliser, concrete cement blocks and also to produce coal-like fuel which would help in generating electricity. This will produce power from solid waste [majority of the fuel used in the plant will be RDF (Refuse Derived Fuel), which is derived from solid waste; detail can be read at European Commission Final Report on RDF ] and will be India's first municipal solid waste power project. The power plant is scheduled to be operational by March 2011 and will have the capacity to produce 15MW of power. It is an initiative under Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM). Now, the company will collect approximately 1,500 metric tonnes solid wastes from home to home per day in the morning and will send it to the plant for management and power production; the garbage collection user charges for each household will be very nominal [between Rs. 30 to Rs. 50]. Although RDF have some pros as well as cons but these secondary fuels, commonly known as Energy from Waste (EFW), Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF) and Solid Recovered Fuel (SRF), will considerably reduce the reliance on C02 producing fossil fuels like coke and will be helpful to provide green energy. This is also an EXCELLENT example of grass-root-level management of solid waste with the mutual co-operation of citizens, government and private sector. Within few months, Kanpur will be a GARBAGE-FREE CITY.
