Aurangabad: The Central Naka compound, which houses the ward office, local body tax (LBT) office and the parking lot for garbage vehicles, has become a dumping yard for Zone 3. With the cessation in processing for the last several weeks, the waste at the site has increased to around 4,000 metric tonnes.The Aurangabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) has already closed its two waste processing sites located in the city outskirts owing to public resistance.The civic body has now roped in Nashik’s Enviro Biotech for the purpose of aerobic digestion of the waste, as suggested by the experts as the only way out of the situation.Almitra Patel, member of the Supreme Court-appointed committee on solid waste management, while giving example of Nagpur and Gurugram said that the current situation which has risen up at Central Naka can be addressed through windrow waste management. “Making windrows correctly will ensure that solid waste management rules are followed. Nagpur chose windrow stabilizing to reclaim 35-acre of its dumping yard,” said Patel, who has surveyed 196 dump yards in the country during her 25 years of work in solid waste management.Earlier this week, the AMC saw a sit-in agitation from MIM corporators for the piling up of garbage at Central Naka. In a response to the protest, mayor Nandkumar Ghodele and municipal commissioner Nipun Vinayak said that the waste will be treated by Nasik’s Enviro Biotech for the next eight days after which it would be lifted from the site.Speaking to TOI, Jayant Pawar of Enviro Biotech confirmed that it is going to work towards reducing the waste through aerobic windrow processing. “The waste is piled up into vertical heaps of 10-12 feet with the help of excavators and is sprayed with bio-culture. The waste heaps are regularly turned to ensure supply of air. The process reduces the volume by 50% as it fastens the decomposition of the biodegradable material in the waste. The waste when passed through ballistic separator can segregate organic compost and non-biodegradable material,” Pawar said.Enviro-Biotech had earlier used the process to treat the mixed waste collected from Central Bus Stand, Padampura, Shahgunj vegetable market and at Central Naka too. Several trucks of organic compost produced in the process was given to farms while the non-decomposed waste including plastic, clothes and metal was sent to boiler in a Chittegaon factory.Experts, however, underlined that the solution to solid waste management problem lies in segregation of waste at source.

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