Bangalore looks to Israeli technology to address civic woes

Despite offering several opportunities, Bangalore has remained vulnerable to power and water problems. The state government's efforts to address the issues could not achieve significant results. Lakes and waterbodies continue to remain dirty and people remain victims of frequent power outages.

The situation, however, is likely to change in the future with deputy mayor S Harish coming up with ideas to save electricity and innovative methods to make the cities waterbodies clean. Harish and his 13-member team have returned after a visit to Israel to attend the WATEC 2011, an international conference and exhibition, which focused on water, sustainable energy, and environmental technologies from November 15-17.

At the event in Tel Aviv, innovative technologies related to water, sewage, renewable and solid waste were demonstrated, said Harish.

"We had an opportunity to visit the Arrow Ecology Municipal Solid waste plant in Tel Aviv, which is an integrated solution for the treatment of unsorted or mixed municipal solid waste of 300 tonnes capacity per day," he said, adding that he was impressed by the company's performance.

Harish said he is keen on the Israeli firm setting up a plant in Bangalore. He said that the Arrow facility provides a unique hydro-mechanical separation and about 90% materials are recovered. The advantage of the technology is that it produces high volumes of methane, a green energy source that can be used to generate power, recovers more than 80-90% of recyclable material (metals, plastics, cardboard, paper, glass and more), quantity of waste to be land-filled is low (20%), zero emission, no odour or other air, water and ground pollution, eliminates the need for pre-sorting and produces clean and stabilised compost (fertiliser), he added.
The deputy mayor said that, next week, Arrow representatives will visit the BBMP for a demonstration. "We are satisfied with the work done by the Arrow ecology and will provide the required land for the company on the city's outskirts if the mayor and council give their consent," he said.

The Arrow Ecology & Engineering Overseas is a unit of Arrow Ecology. Their technology ArrowBio treats Municipal Solid Waste to recover recyclables and produce renewable energy. It can handle residential and commercial wastes, accepting both unsorted and sorted ones, with its heterogeneity, variability, abrasiveness and wetness.

In addition to separating 70%-80% of recyclable materials (valorization), the 'organic fraction' is separated, purified and prepared, in order to produce biogas (55%-75% methane), and fertiliser.

Only 20%-30% residues are sent to landfills, thereby increasing recycling percentages, minimising pollution, reducing waste treatment costs, and producing renewable electricity.

How it works
The ArrowBio process is divided into two main steps, separation process—dry and wet—and biological process, which includes anaerobic digestion and aerobic treatment.
The ArrowBio plant will use a system where the municipal waste is separated and transferred to biological system for anaerobic digestion. The main products are biogas, soil improver and excess water.