Jashore waste treatment plant struggles to reach full capacity

Jashore waste treatment plant, which was built in 2018 in the city's Hamidpur area, is yet to produce biogas and fertiliser as per its capacity since the company that took a lease of the plant left after a few months as the supply of waste was not adequate to produce fertiliser, biogas and electricity.

As per the condition of the donors, the plant is supposed to be run by a third-party entity. The first lessee was Mahabub Brothers which stopped its operation soon after it started as it did not get the required amount of waste needed to run the plant fully. Since then, Jashore Municipality has been running the plant just to keep it operative, said municipality authorities.

"We are trying to keep it operative on a small scale so that the machines do not get non-functional. We have only 15 workers whereas we need at least 100 to collect and process waste. We have a shortage of vehicles too," said Moksimul Bari Apu, acting mayor of Jashore municipality.

The project started in 2016 and ended in 2018. Besides the Bangladesh government, Asian Development Bank, German Development Bank and Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency financed the project worth Tk50 crore. The condition of the donor agencies was that the management would be leased out to a third party.

The plant aimed to produce eco-friendly organic fertilizers from septic tank waste and biogas from waste. The municipality also planned to supply the gas on a commercial basis to the houses in the surrounding areas, according to Jashore municipality authorities.

Supervisor of the plant, GM Farhad Hossain said as much as 70 tonnes of waste is collected a day against its capacity to process 80 tonnes. However, only 10% of it can be processed due to manpower shortage. Only 15 workers cannot work in all the sections. As a result, Tk1.04 crore was spent in the last four years against which 145 tonnes of fertiliser was produced worth Tk10.15 lakh.

There are 130 containers for waste collection in nine wards of the city. Containers filled with garbage are brought to the yard every morning. Workers pick them and collect only the perishables, which are used to produce compost and biogas. But with 15 workers it is possible to pick up seven to eight tonnes of garbage, he added.

Amit Kumar, manager of the plant, said hundreds of workers are needed to sort this garbage whereas there are 15 who also do the work of the compost department and biogas department. As a result, the entire plan can be kept operational for only three days. For the remaining 27 days, only garbage is collected.

He added that seven to eight tonnes of fertilizer could be produced daily if manpower is available as per requirement. There is a demand for 100 tonnes of fertiliser per month.

He further said that a local company has recently leased the plant and it is expected to start working soon.