Indian city to turn rubbish into fuel pellets

Rubbish at landfills in the Indian city of Ahmedabad will be converted to green fuel pellets under a 500m rupee (£6.3m) scheme with Japanese waste management firm Creative Co.

Up to 800 metric tonnes of solid waste will be converted daily into eco-friendly pellets, at a recycling rate of 90 per cent. The pellets will then be used to fuel power plants throughout the city.

Located in Gujarat state, Ahmedabad is the second largest industrial centre in western India after Mumbai. It produces 2,300 tonnes of solid waste daily.

Creative said that it hopes to have the project underway in the next 14 to 16 months.

The scheme, announced last week, is expected to generate carbon credits for Ahmedabad Municipal Corp, a government body that oversees the city’s infrastructure and administration.

The corporation's health and solid waste management committee chairman, Praful Rawal, told the Times of India newspaper that the scheme will " ensure a hygienic way of disposing of solid waste and earning profits from it".

A similar waste-to-energy project is also underway as part of a deal announced earlier this month by Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport and Selco International, a Bangalore-based waste management company.

The airport's operating company, Delhi International Airport Ltd (DIAL), and Selco will build a 1.4bn rupee 10MW plant that will generate energy from municipal waste.

It will be located at the town of Ghazipur in East Delhi with an expected completion date of late-2010. The plant will be capable of processing 1,300 tonnes of municipal waste daily, which is 100 tonnes more than Delhi produces each day, according to DIAL.

The facility is expected to put an end to electricity blackouts at the airport, which is India's second-busiest in terms of passenger volume.

It will also generate revenue by selling about half the power produced to the grid and has secured validation under the UN's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) allowing it to issue and sell carbon credits.

A project design document, filed with the UN's CDM executive board, states that the plant will convert waste into eco-friendly fluff and pellets that would be fed into a boiler to produce power.