VARANASI: Varanasi Municipal Corporation (VMC) established a Material Recovery Facility (MRF) set up as a part of the “Development and Management of Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs) in India” at Bhawania Pokhri, Belupur. The MRF is initiated in a partnership with Tetra Pak, Deutsche Gesellschaftfür International Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI). The main objective of MRF is to increase the collection of recyclable waste and help strengthen the waste management in the city.
The Federal Ministry of the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU), Germany funds the NAMA project. The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC), Government of India is the nodal Ministry for the NAMA project.
The new MRF will work as a waste-sorting center where plastic, mixed-waste paper, paper-based cartons, etc. will be separated. The facility will focus on dry waste. Further, the MRF is been set up near a VMC biogas plant so that the wet waste collected will beprocessedand turned it into electricity, making it a truly ‘zero-waste’ site.
Collected dry waste materials recycled through MRF will be put into the applicable recycling tributaries ensuring that no waste goes to landfills. The carton packages will be sent to Tetra Pak’s recycling partner in Uttarakhand where it can be recycled into useful items such as paper, furniture and other products. Trilochan Enterprises, a Varanasi based organisation that deals in a collection of dry waste from the city will manage the day to day operations of this facility.