4 days to go for Japanese tech to churn city garbage into fertilizer

BENGALURU: While around 200 kg of raw organic waste from around the locality was being fermented to produce soil enriching fertiliser, the Koramangala garbage segregation unit near Jyoti Nivas College was all smell and smoke free on Friday morning. This was possible due to the Rs 3.5 crore worth India’s first Japanese bio engineering rapid compost machine which would start operating in the next three to four days at the same unit, converting 4 tonnes of organic city waste into fertilisers in one and half-hours’ time.
To add more, the machine, which works as an aerobic digester, has zero discharge (both solid and gaseous), thereby acting as a high speed, environment friendly compost device.It was designed in Japan, assembled in China and brought to India by JERS Environment Technologies Private Limited, a city based company.
Vijay Kumar, technical support operator from JERS who was monitoring the working of the device, said: “This device has got a capacity of fermenting four tonnes of waste into fertilisers in 10 cycles, treating 200 kg of waste every time. At the end of the treatment about 70% of the waste will get converted into fertiliser and the rest 30% can either be further treated to extract more fertiliser or be used as refuse derived fuel (RFD). This RFD, when used as fuel, would contain fewer toxins and emit lesser pollutants to the air.”
“210 Kilo Watt of power is required to compost four tonnes of waste into fertiliser. For every 10 cycle, 20 Kilo Watt of power would be enough to churn 200 kg of waste into 35 kg of fertiliser. Going by the present market cost of power per unit, an average of Rs 500 will be the cost for power required to ferment 200 kg of waste and eight to 10 litres of water will be consumed for the same. One skilled technical support and two labourers are enough to man the machine,” he added.
This aerobic chamber works in two phases – the fermentation process followed by the drying process. The time taken to compost waste depends on the moisture content of the input. While the machine is capable of treating wastes with moisture content of 80%, it retains 18% to 20% of moisture content in the output which makes the compost a better quality one.
“Similar machines have been already set up in Singapore, Philippines, Canada and other abroad countries. However, this is the first machine that India has got and we hope to set it up all across the country after a successful trial in Bangalore,” Vijay Kumar said.
Anil Chinniah, secretary to Resident Welfare Association in Koramangala 3rd Block, who is in charge of driving waste from the surrounding area to the segregation unit to get treated, said: “We already have a waste composting site in our locality put up by the residents of Koramangala 3rd Block. While nature composts our waste in three months’ time, this machine does it within one and half to two hours. We have to keep few logistics in mind, like power and water consumption of the device, transportation cost for carrying garbage to the segregation unit, labour charge required to man the device and so on. If everything is feasible for all, the machine can be used all across the state.”
How does it work on 200kg of waste?
· Raw, organic waste with moisture content up to 60 to 80% is put into the chamber of the reactor along with steam of about 130 degree Celsius and a working pressure of 4 kg per hour.
· A vacuum pressure of 0.6 bars (60,000 Pascal) is generated within the chamber which acts as an aerobic digester.
· Live microbes are then injected into the chamber. The machine requires microbe injection for only once in lifetime, unless the chamber is sanitised or the composition of raw material is changed.
Fermentation process begins in three stages
Stage1: fermentation by psychrophilic bacteria for 15 to 20 minutes which disintegrate bigger waste particles into smaller units
Stage 2: fermentation by mesophilic bacteria for 20 minutes that multiplies within mass, thereby making the fermentation procedure faster.
Step 3: fermentation by thermophilic bacteria at 70 to 72 degrees of temperature which takes away the odour causing bacteria and retains the nitrogen fixing ones. This step takes out all the weeds from the waste.
· Then comes up the drying process where the chamber acts like a pressure cooker, use the vacuum pressure of 0.6 bars and suck the condensed water through the scrubber that filters particulate matter of toxic gases within the chamber.
· The mass is then passed on to the pump followed by cooling tower where the mass is dried up and made ready to be taken out.
· After retaining 18% to 20% of water, the compost comes out of the exit gate and after ordinary sieving that separates the fertiliser from RDF, the compost is ready to be used.