In order to manage the waste produced during Ganesh Visarjan, the 'nirmalya' offered to lord Ganesh during the festival will soon be converted into organic manure by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). The manure will later be used in BMC gardens. This year, over 1,083 tonnes of flower, leaves and garland were offered to Ganesh idols during the 10-day festival.
According to the BMC figures, out of the 1,083 tonnes of wet-waste collected, 114 tonnes of waste was collected in the R/Central ward. Lakhs of citizens offered flowers, leaves to seek blessing of the lord Ganesh. With respect to the feelings of the devotees, this year too, the BMC has come up with the idea of making organic fertilizers.
The 'nirmalya' offering will be converted into manure in 28 compost sites of the BMC. Vijay Balamwar, solid waste management's DMC, said, "The composting process of generating the manure has already started. Within the next 20 days, organic manure will be ready. It will be used as a fertilizer in the BMC's gardens located in various areas in the city. This has been a successful project since few years. The amount of manure produced by using nirmalyas is not sufficient', but it helps us to reduce the amount of waste in the city for a good purpose."
The Ganesh festival, which started on September 5 ended on September 15. Within these 10 days, around 246 collection pots and 1,101 tempos were placed at various immersion spots in the city to collect the wet-waste.
While P/N ward collected 78.4 tonnes, H/W ward collected 75 tonnes of nirmalya. 'A' ward has collected 6 tonnes of nirmalya offering being the lowest amount of waste collected amongst 24 wards.
To convert this waste, the G/N ward has started a new compost centre near Mahim Chowpatty, which requires more manpower and has a capacity to convert around two metric tonnes biodegradable waste.
Speaking about the new centre, G/N assistant commissioner, Ramakant Biradar, said, "Since there is a lot of biodegradable waste generated in this ward, we thought to initiate another centre. The new center has the capacity of two metric tonnes. Since the new one doesn't use the technique that requires electricity, it will take a little more time to generate the compost. The compost generated out of nirmalya offering will be sufficient for three months of gardening activity in our ward."
Adding more information, G/N SWM supervisor, Tanaji Ghag, said, "We have used liquid and solid chemical to reduce the stench of compost during the process. We will be promoting this small pilot project to generate awareness in housing societies."
