By Rajat Rai, IANS,
Lucknow : Over 200 slaughterhouses in Uttar Pradesh will have biogas plants within a year if the plans of the Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board (UPPCB) go as per schedule. They will use the waste that now make the environment around the slaughterhouses notoriously filthy and turn it into electricity and manure.
Besides producing electricity for the in-house use of the slaughterhouses, the organic manure produced as a by-product will also bring financial benefits.
At present, areas surrounding most slaughterhouses are extremely filthy.
“A survey was conducted very recently in over 200 slaughterhouses of 72 districts and the idea of installing biogas plants was found to be most suitable and feasible,” G.N. Garg, chief environment engineer of UPPCB, told IANS.
The idea, according to Garg, came when owners of a slaughterhouse in Unnao district approached the UPPCB.
“The modern slaughterhouse in Unnao imported the biogas installation from New Zealand and after finding it both economically and environmentally better, they approached us with the idea”, Garg said.
The technique is popular in New Zealand and The Netherlands, he added.
“We plan to produce methane gas by using a mixture of blood and dung which will in turn be used to produce electricity for internal use,” Garg explained.
The waste will be recycled a number of times and finally will be used to produce organic manure, he added.
“The cost of one plant installation is Rs.15,000-20,000 which is nearly equal to a year’s electricity bill of a slaughterhouse. Besides, the organic manure will also generate good profits,” Garg said.
“We have promised full assistance to owners right from making the units available and installing them.
“Indirectly, we have warned the slaughterhouses that we’ll make pollution control norms more stringent if they do not adopt the idea. Now they are volunteering themselves and have initiated the process,” Garg said. He was hopeful that each slaughterhouse in Uttar Pradesh would have a biogas plant within a year.
(Rajat Rai can be contacted at [email protected])