ECL waste-to-wealth project gets into takers

The Indian Army has shown keen interest to purchase paver blocks manufactured by the central public sector undertaking Eastern Coalfields Limited (ECL) to further boost the safety of its bunkers for its jawans at the hilly terrains of the north eastern and northern borders in the country.

About a year ago, ECL started manufacturing plastic paver blocks from its waste as part of its ‘waste to wealth’ initiative in the Bankola area of Durgapur sub-division. The plastic paver blocks will not only be used to construct bunkers but also the boundary walls.

Advertisement

Satish Chandra Jha, chairman cum managing director (CMD) of ECL has confirmed that the paver blocks or bricks manufactured by the company in Sripur plant have already received good response from the defence sector and buoyed by its success it has now set up its second unit in Sripur under Satgram area in West Burdwan district.

Talking to The Statesman, Niladri Roy, director (technical) of Eastern Coalfields Limited has informed that the paver blocks manufactured by ECL by treating its plastic waste collected from its township daily is about five to seven times more strong than the conventional concrete paver blocks and is also lightweight.

“We are presently manufacturing about 50 to 100 paver blocks per day from the Bankola plant and the second plant has been set up in the Sripur-Satgram area. Most of the bricks are consumed for internal civil work of ECL and the rest has been supplied to the defence sector. The demand is growing and likewise we will enhance our production capacities,” he added.

He further added that about one kilogram of plastic waste is required to convert into pellets and then manufacture one piece of brick. The waste plastic materials are segregated and collected daily from the civic body dumping grounds of solid waste and sent to the plants for paver block manufacturing.

To tackle the menace of single-use plastic waste, ECL has set up a solid waste management unit which has transformed single-use plastic into a valuable resource. The campaign was executed in key steps:

Efficient Waste Collection: ECL proactively collected solid waste from the Bankola Area Colony and collaborated with registered vendors to gather plastic waste from outside the leasehold area.

For segregation of waste ECL’s dedicated team sorted various waste types including plastic, paper, and other discarded items ensuring that each material is reused or recycled.

Innovative Plastic Waste Processing: The most noteworthy practice is transformation of plastic waste into useful end products. ECL’s plastic waste handling unit in the Bankola area ingeniously converted these discarded plastics into paver blocks and bricks creating valuable resources out of what was once considered waste.

It is assumed that the indigenously developed plastic paver blocks or bricks can be heavily utilized by the Indian Army to further strengthen its bunkers and walls in the northern border areas and north eastern border areas particularly which have large hilly terrains.

After the recent clash with Pakistan, India’s indigenously developed weapons and artillery have generated a good demand globally.