Integrated Waste Management Plan for Mookkannoor Panchayat and

Angamaly Municipality

Aswathy V S*, Amal Madhu*, Arun Rajan*, Jobin Jose* and Jawahar Saud S.*
*
Federal Institute of Science And Technology, Ernakulam, Kerala

ABSTRACT

Integrated waste management systems are mandatory for the development of any region. Angamaly is a
fast-developing satellite town situated 32 km north of Kochi. Mookkannoor panchayat is yet another fast
developing town close to Angamaly. Presently, Angamaly municipality transports only its organic waste
fraction to Brahmapuram waste treatment plant, while Mookannoor panchayat lacks any such waste
management strategy to date. The adopted waste management system should be feasible and environmentally
sustainable. The waste should be collected, separated at the source itself using colour coded bins, transported to
the processing plant, and treated using suitable methods. For Angamaly town and Mookkannoor panchayat,
with a total waste generation of 17 tonnes per day, the waste needs to be segregated at source to plastic, papers,
metals and glass, and organics. It should then be collected and transported to the processing site through
optimized routes, and processed accordingly as per pollution control norms. Analysing the socio-economic
condition of the town and the panchayath, the major portion (12.75 tonnes per day) of the waste generated
would be compostable organics, and the best suited method for disposing this waste is anaerobic digestion. It is
an environmental friendly process, generating biogas and fertilizer as end products. The inorganic portion of the
waste can be segregated as recyclable wastes and non-recyclable wastes by manual sorting. Recyclable wastes
will then be reprocessed, and the non-recyclable wastes will be incinerated. Our work focuses on drafting a plan
comprising design and estimate of components used in anaerobic digester and incineration plant keeping in
mind economy, site requirements and pollution norms. The anaerobic digestion plant consists of storage shed,
shredder, mixing and dosing unit, conveyors and pumps, digester, biogas collection chamber etc. The
incineration plant consists of a primary and secondary combustion chamber, heat exchanger, cyclone separator
and wet scrubber. Optimal engineering and designing of such a system results in fixed and operative investment
and return. The incineration unit and anaerobic digester has proved its high operating efficiency through the
measurements of different pollutant-levels vented to the open atmosphere, which was found to be in conformity
with the maximum allowable limits as specified in the law. The paper also critically examines the attitude of
dwellers in the selected site. A pretested and self-administered Questionnaire was used for this purpose.This
project aims at proposing a waste management plan keeping 15 years in sight for Angamaly town and
Mookkannoor Panchayath.