Adar Poonawalla to spearhead clean Pune initiative

Unveils clean city movement in association with NobleExchange and Pune Municipal Corporation 

Pune, January 8, 2016 : Mr. Adar Poonawalla, CEO, Serum Institute of India, today unveiled a major public movement towards a clean and green Pune. The Adar Poonawalla Clean City Movement (APCCM) is a green initiative with a sole purpose to make Indian cities more livable through efficient and green waste management. This is first-of-its-kind Public Private Partnership towards scientific waste management in association with the Pune Municipal Corporation and NobleExchange Environment Solutions.

This initiative was inaugurated today at the Serum Institute Head Office by Shri Devendra Fadnavis, Hon’ble Chief Minister of Maharashtra in the presence of Shri Kunal Kumar, Commissioner – Pune Municipal Corporation and other dignitaries.

At current estimates, over 1700 tonnes of waste is generated in the city of Pune of which 52-55% is wet waste in nature. When such wet food waste is segregated and removed separately at source, the rest of the inorganic waste like plastic, metal, paper, rags, etc. also can be scientifically processed and effectively recycled. This will ensure minimisation of land fill and free up urban land for more productive purposes.

Organic food waste when disposed unscientifically creates a series of social, environmental and health hazards. This happens due to emission of poisonous green house gases, release of odour, creation of breeding ground for flies, mosquitoes, bacteria and viruses; and polluting of ground water reserves amongst others. Such food / organic waste generated in large volumes in Urban Cities can be processed scientifically to be converted into renewable energy and organic manure.

Laying out his vision, Mr. Adar Poonawalla said: ‘Everyone feels sad when they see garbage and waste lying on our streets and want to do something about it; however, the solutions to these basic problems have been complex. Through this movement we have tried to develop a self sustained model. Under this initiative, we aim to cover cleaning of 300 km of roads running across municipal limits of the city in a phased manner.”

He further added, “Our aim is to make Pune one of the cleanest cities in India. We want to encourage citizens to drive this movement through active participation and appeal to them to segregate the waste at source into dry and wet waste and dispose only using waste bins.”

With an investment of Rs.100 Crore as CSR funding from Serum Institute of India and Mr. Adar Poonawalla, this movement will cover the city’s network of roads in phases over the next three years. With a fleet of specially designed trucks and thousands of litter bins, this wet waste will be responsibly removed and processed in a state-of-the-art processing plant by Noble Exchange Environment Solutions – the technology & operations partner in this movement.

Pune is India’s first city to adopt this movement. Phase 1 of the APCCM will be rolled out in the three wards of Ghole Road, Dhole Patil Road and Salisbury Park. The movement would then be rolled out to cover other wards of the city in a phased pattern.

The APCCM will focus on supporting the Pune Municipal Corporation with infrastructure and management of solid waste, specially focusing on organic waste management. Initiatives undertaken in this direction will include:

1. Providing of litter bins to be installed at strategic / high traffic locations across the city

2. Support vehicles and manpower for clearance of garbage from litter bins

3. Advanced mobile food waste processing vans that will enable processing of organic food waste at the ward level itself

4. Information and outreach programs to educate citizens regarding importance of segregation of waste and disposal using waste / litter bins

5. Activation programs in association with PMC at schools, mohalla committees, residential societies and market places amongst others

About the Process

The initiative will focus on removal of as much organic food waste segregated at source and divert the same for scientific processing. Rest of inorganic waste will be diverted to transfer stations managed by PMC and thereafter into the recycling / reprocessing plants. It is targeted to segregate and process 300-350 tonnes of wet food waste every day. So, in a year about 109,500 tonnes of wet waste will get processed into biofuel and organic manure. But that’s not all. There will be other allied advantages as well. It will also ensure that garbage does not go into a landfill and spread health hazards and outbreaks. About 109 acres of landscape will be freed in the process. Furthermore, one year of wet waste removal will also result in 542 tonnes of carbon emission saved by fuel replacement.

The long term vision is to ensure that more and more cities adopt this movement and Urban India becomes cleaner, greener, healthier and happier.

Citizens can participate by starting to responsibly segregate dry and wet waste. If a ward is not covered in Phase 1, a society can write to response@adarpcleancity.org requesting the APCCM to add the ward in Phase 2.

Corporate Comm India(CCI Newswire)