bio-gas plants to treat the organic waste generated

Chinmaya Vidyalaya schools in the city have been installed with bio-gas plants to treat the organic waste generated, including the Chinmaya Vidyalaya at Vazhuthacaud | By Mukesh Venu

On Jul 30, 2012

Waste disposal at schools could be a daunting task; especially when the number of students numbers a thousand. The issue of waste treatment remains caught up in the political jinx, and every home, hospital, hotel and institution is left to itself in sorting out effective and efficient treatment methods to get rid of the organic waste that is generated on a daily basis.

The Chinmaya Mission has been an active participant in spreading education through out the transitionary periods that the state has gone through ever since its formation.

Keeping up this legacy, the school management has come forward with an environment friendly way to treat food waste that's generated in the five schools functioning under the Chinmaya Mission in the city. Every school has been equipped with a bio-gas plant to convert the food waste generated into usable biogas.

“There are close to a thousand students studying in this school,” says Ashalatha, Principal, Chinmaya Vidyalaya, Vazhuthacaud. “The bio-gas plant had to be installed as we did not possess a proper method to do something about the gathering food waste.”

With options for waste disposal running short in the city, the bio-gas plant was more a necessity than an alternative for the school. The financial aid for installing the bio-gas plant at these schools came from the Chinmaya Trust, and was installed with the help of students, teachers and the PTA of the schools.

 

The food waste is dumped into the plant containing the cultivated bacteria population, which converts the waste into fuel gas and left over composite. The bacterial population in the plant is fast growing and the small plant is enough to treat the waste generated from the whole school every day.

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Biogas and fertilizer in a new era

Biogas and fertilizer in a new age

The use of biogas as a fuel in Sweden suggests that there is a replacement for fuel oil that is derived from wastes buried -- often deep in earth -- by ecological processes of decomposition and storage. Before learning that burning oil and coal would lead to severe planetary problems, we proceeded with ignorance of the consequences: witness damage to oceans, atmosphere, incidence of severe storms, imminent threat to slippage of Greenland's ice mass and similar problems with Antarctic ice masses.
Imagine a world in which most nations could be self-sufficient by distilling their own fuels. Imagine the benefits of eliminating fuel oil spills in the oceans. Imagine small producers making fuel affordable for transportation, heating homes, or production of electricity.
In sustainability-conscious Sweden, the city of Stockholm has converted its 1,600 vehicles to running on  biogas  . The private market for  biogas  -fuelled cars is increasing. Anaerobic digestion of sewage sludge has been carried on for decades and the resulting biogas is used for heating, electricity production, and is processed for car fuel. The biogas is manufactured from organic wastes from restaurants and commercial kitchens as well as from manure and sewage. The waste product from the biogas production is better as fertilizer than ordinary manure because it makes nitrogen is more available.
In Linkoping, a city of 140,000, a plant was started in 1997 to treat organic agricultural waste in southeastern Sweden. It provides biogas for urban city buses and reduces emissions from urban transport. The plant treats 100,000 tonnes annually and produces 4.7 million cubic metres of upgraded biogas (97 per cent CH4 ) that is used in 64 buses and a number of heavy and light duty vehicles.
The first biogas train ran between Linkoping and Vastervik in June 2005. The biogas run train has reduced its greenhouse gas emissions to zero.

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