Few incidents compell you to think and this is one of them, it happened around 2 years ago. My wife and I were traveling from Kolkata to Mumbai in an AC compartment of Geetanjali Express. A few moments later a couple took the seats next to ours. Going by the looks the man easily fits in the 45-50 years age group with a good family background. His wife appeared to be a foreigner. Shortly we started talking and then we knew him to be working as an engineer in some Middle Eastern country. Fine! In a short while the chaiwala came. Most of us bought a cup of tea. Now this gentleman also bought tea and started telling his wife, “see how convenient it is to use plastic glasses. Just use and throw. And our Railway Minister wants to change it to the kulhars (earthen pots) how stupid.” Now the utility of kulhars is a different story. But this attitude of “use and throw” made me think seriously of how one day this will force us to pay dearly, if not already.
In the financial year 2003-04, about 42 million tons of plastic was used in India. By 2010, it is predicted to grow to 125 million tons, making India third largest consumer of plastics. And what would we do with that entire plastic, throw it, what else? Then let it clog the rivers and canals or find its way to the stomach of cattle and kill them as it is happening now a days. Many state governments have put ban on the plastic bags, but it is still used in many other forms and becomes a hazard for our future. It takes about one million years for plastic to degrade naturally. This is not only a problem concerning India; the whole world is facing this danger.
The good news is that the solution for this problem is invented by an Indian lady scientist. Prof. Mrs. Alka Zadgaonkar from an engineering college in Nagpur, Maharashtra has invented a simple technique to convert plastic into fuel. In fact plastic is produced by polymerization of petroleum oil. Its back conversion from plastic to oil is very difficult and expensive. But Prof. Zadgaonkar’s invention is the world’s first process in which any type of plastic can be processed without much cleaning and that too economically! According to her, at an average Rs. 9.50 investment, 1 kg for plastic can be converted in to 0.6 liter of petrol, 0.3 liters of diesel and 0.1 of other types of oil. These products would fetch about Rs. 31.65!
More importantly, this setup has not remained as an experiment. But Prof. Zadgaonkar herself has taken an initiative to commercialize it. Her husband, Mr. Umesh Zadgaonkar is helping her in this process. In the year 2005 they setup a 5 ton per day capacity plant with the financial help of Rs. 5 crore from State Bank of India, which they have already started paying back. The fuel produced by this plant is bought by the industry in the region. A bigger plant with 25 ton capacity is already under construction, with it’s production already booked by the near by industry. The city of Nagpur produces 35 tons of plastic waste per day. So clearly the Zadgaonkar family has to put the future plants in other cities.
Let’s hope they succeed in this endeavour and the whole world gets a solution for such a serious problem. We ought to our share of the work to help these efforts. How? By making sure that the plastic waste is properly managed, collected separately. So that it will not mix with other types of wastes and can be disposed off properly.
To be continued…..
Related links: Central Institute of Plastics Engineering and Technology, An article on Good News India about Prof.Zadgaonkar, Research article by Prof. Zadgaonkar on the conversion of plastic into fuel.
