Jammu: In a step to make Jammu a plastic-free city, the winter capital got its first material recovery facility (MRF) with a capacity to handle five metric tonnes of plastic waste per day, officials said on Thursday.
The facility was inaugurated at Bhagwati Nagar here following the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between Jammu Municipal Corporation (JMC) and NGO Indian Pollution Control Association (IPCA) about two years ago, the officials said.
They said the idea behind the facility is to strengthen the supply chain of post-consumer plastic waste.
“The MRF will receive plastic waste from households, markets and from the rag-pickers, which will be segregated into different categories and get compressed through hydraulic balers installed at the facility,” an official said.
He said the IPCA will also channelise segregated plastic waste to its respective recyclers or co-processor for its recycling.
“Such initiatives are the need of the hour to manage the menace of plastic waste in the city. With help of many such centres we can increase the rate of collection and segregation of plastic waste and provide a solution to the multi-layered packaging waste,” JMC Mayor Chander Mohan Gupta said.
JMC Commissioner Avny Lavasa said the corporation intends to promote decentralised waste management and create awareness among the people.
She said the JMC with IPCA would also conduct a capacity building programme to increase the capacity of rag pickers.
“MRF will help channelise low-grade plastic waste to its recyclers or co-processor more effectively and economically. MRF will function as secondary segregation and semi-mechanised centre to increase the segregation rate of different grades of plastic and to reduce the logistic cost to handle the plastic waste,” Director IPCA Ashish Jain said.
