Campus Talk: Cooking Gas From Food Waste

Chinmaya Vidyalaya schools in the city have been installed with bio-gas plants to treat the organic waste generated, including the Chinmaya Vidyalaya at Vazhuthacaud | By Mukesh Venu

On Jul 30, 2012

Waste disposal at schools could be a daunting task; especially when the number of students numbers a thousand. The issue of waste treatment remains caught up in the political jinx, and every home, hospital, hotel and institution is left to itself in sorting out effective and efficient treatment methods to get rid of the organic waste that is generated on a daily basis. The Chinmaya Mission has been an active participant in spreading education through out the transitionary periods that the state has gone through ever since its formation. Keeping up this legacy, the school management has come forward with an environment friendly way to treat food waste that's generated in the five schools functioning under the Chinmaya Mission in the city. Every school has been equipped with a bio-gas plant to convert the food waste generated into usable biogas. “There are close to a thousand students studying in this school,” says Ashalatha, Principal, Chinmaya Vidyalaya, Vazhuthacaud. “The bio-gas plant had to be installed as we did not possess a proper method to do something about the gathering food waste.” With options for waste disposal running short in the city, the bio-gas plant was more a necessity than an alternative for the school. The financial aid for installing the bio-gas plant at these schools came from the Chinmaya Trust, and was installed with the help of students, teachers and the PTA of the schools.   The food waste is dumped into the plant containing the cultivated bacteria population, which converts the waste into fuel gas and left over composite. The bacterial population in the plant is fast growing and the small plant is enough to treat the waste generated from the whole school every day.

“We use the gas generated from the plant for making tea for the teachers in the mornings and afternoons, and to boil the water for the LP section kids. The composite makes for excellent fertilizer which has already started showing its effects in the school garden.” The environment friendly way of treating left over food at Chinmaya Vidyalaya School, Vazhuthacaud, gives adequate proof to two things – the efficiency of the plant in treating the waste with no harmful residue, and the necessity of having a bio-gas plant in schools to take care of food waste. With the waste issue showing no sign of being resolved in the near future, it is high time that schools in the city started resorting to environment friendly methods of treating organic waste to not only provide for clean surroundings, but also to bring profit by saving on gas cylinders.