Power from unwieldy waste

With fossil fuels becoming hard to procure for running the country's power plants, the government's plan to construct a set-up that uses municipal wastes for generation of power couldn't have come at a more appropriate time. By putting the waste-to-energy plant (WTE) to work, the government expects to generate 42.5 megawatts of electricity a day. The waste will be collected from Dhaka's Aminbazar landfill. In completing the WTE project, the government is poised to begin the construction of the project's first incineration plant on July 20. Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives (LGRD) Minister Md Tazul Islam disclosed the information on June 15.
To speak without mincing words, Dhaka is veritably swamped with municipal and other types of waste. The landfill falls under the Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC). It's worth mentioning that the Local Government Division, Power Development Board and DNCC have signed a contract with China Machinery Engineering Corporation in 2021 for a project to generate power from waste. The government has already acquired 30 acres of land at Aminbazar at a cost of Tk 3.36 billion. It has to supply 3,000 tonnes of waste as raw materials daily after the project starts. As the LGRD Minister said, the power plant will be built costing around $300 million. Bangladesh Power Development Board will purchase power from the plant for the next 25 years after its completion. It's also worth mentioning that the power produced at the waste-to-energy plant will be cheaper than the electricity produced from fossil fuels.
Currently, at least 3,500 tonnes of mixed wastes are collected from the DNCC area, Mayor Atiqul Islam said. Those will be supplied to the plant after screening out construction materials, and human and animal waste. As days wear on, different types of waste, the largest part comprising the domestic ones, continue to plague public life in both urban and rural areas. Due to the unbridled increase in population in the cities and business centres, prompt collection of municipal waste continues to prove daunting. Thanks to the lack of manpower and designated transports, large volumes of waste fail to reach the landfill points. Thus overfilled dumpsters have become a common sight in Dhaka. At the same time, littering has emerged as a community habit in the urban areas. In the outlying swathes of the metropolitan areas, timely collection of municipal and other wastes remains illusory – leading to the urban scourge of sloppy waste management. Against this backdrop, introduction of the waste-to-energy project, a unique one, will prove beneficial to the country. It's because the mission, eventually, assures the power-deficient Bangladesh of a significant volume of electricity.
What has prompted Bangladesh to join the waste-to-energy (WTE) project in collaboration with China is to generate power through disposal of waste materials by way of an incineration process; the prime objective being keeping the urban environment pollution-free. It's undoubtedly a laudable project. But the absence of the Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC), the other part of the city authorities, throws many into confusion. Meanwhile, European environmental platforms like Zero Waste Group have expressed their reservations about these projects as they note CO2 emissions from WTE are almost double the reported amount. This nagging damper ought to be kept in mind while becoming a party to the project.