Aafrin Kidwai 
The East Coast Railway (ECoR) has commissioned the country’s first government-run Waste to Energy (WtE) Plant at Mancheswar Carriage Repair Workshop in Bhubaneswar, Orissa.
This WtE plant, a patented technology called Polycrack, is the first of its kind in the Indian Railways and fourth in India. It is the world’s first patented heterogeneous catalytic process which converts multiple feedstocks into hydrocarbon liquid fuels, gas, carbon and water. The plant was constructed in three months at a cost of around 1.79 crores.
Ommcommnews.com reports that waste generated from Mancheswar Carriage Repair Workshop, Coaching Depot and Bhubaneswar Railway Station will be feeder material for this plant. This plant will access 500 kg of waste materials per day. While estimated income from the by-products is Rs 17.5 lakh per annum, the maintenance cost will be Rs 10.4 lakh per annum.
Earlier, lots of non-ferrous scrap generated from the Carriage Repair Workshop had no efficient method of disposal. As a result, these elements were being disposed by landfills, which had environmentally hazardous impact.
A polycrack plant can be fed with all types of plastic, petroleum sludge, unsegregated municipal solid waste with moisture up to 50 per cent, e-waste, automobile fluff, organic waste including bamboos, garden waste etc.
Polycrack has some advantages over other solid waste treatments. For instance, pre-segregation of waste is not required to reform the waste. Waste as collected can be directly fed into Polycrack. It also has high tolerance to moisture hence drying of waste is not required.
Similar WtE plants are being operated by Infosys, Bangalore, Moti Bagh, Delhi and Hindalco, albeit at a smaller scale.
