CANACONA
The Material Recovery Facility (MRF), which is equipped with a composting unit and a baling machine to treat wet and dry garbage at Toureamoll-Agonda, has played a key role in garbage management in Agonda, a coastal village which has been acclaimed across the world.
The unit is fitted and operated by Ecozen Natural, which claims to be the only such composting unit used in the entire State.
According to Sidharth, owner-cum-operator of Ecozen Natural, other compositing units usually take 12-15 days for the composting process.
“The advanced composting unit which my company has innovated takes only 24 hours to provide the best compost,” he said.
BACKGROUND
Built on comunidade land measuring 5,011 square metres, the land was acquired after a lengthy process which was set in motion in 2008.
The MRF at Agonda is the outcome of the Rural Garbage Disposal Scheme-2005. While the file was first moved in 2006 to acquire land to dispose of garbage under High Court directives, things began to move only after 2008, as then-sarpanch Jovi Fernandes successfully earmarked a suitable vacant land and also received an award order for possession of 5,011 square metres at Toureamoll-Agonda.
When the government introduced the MRF at the village and cluster level in 2019 to identify land for the storage, segregation and treatment of waste, this same land was put to use to construct the shed housing the baling machine and an advanced composting unit, the first and only type in the State.
The foundation stone for the MRF was laid in May 2021 and the waste management shed under Swatch Bharat Mission Grameen Phase-II was commissioned exactly one year later in May 2022 during the tenure of then sarpanch Badal Naik Gaonkar and panchayat secretary Amol Naik Gaonkar.
ACTIVITY
The MRF at Toureamoll-Agonda has a composting unit which has the capacity to treat a maximum of 1.5 tonnes of wet garbage and turn it into compost in less than 24 hours.
An average of 1,200 kgs of wet garbage is received every day and non-biodegradable waste is segregated and only biodegradable material is processed at the Agonda MRF site.
According to the Ecozen Natural owner-cum-operator Sidharth, the wet waste collection goes above the capacity of the composting unit during peak tourism season and especially on weekends.
“A second unit may be needed to treat the ever-growing wet waste collections from the increasing tourism activities along the village coast,” he said.
All the non-biodegradable and dry waste is treated at the baling machine operated by the panchayat-engaged personnel at the same MRF site.
According to Agonda Panchayat Secretary Amol Naikgaunkar, the MRF gets an average of 800-900 kgs of dry waste daily, which is collected by panchayat-engaged workers in a door-to-door drive, roadside and beachside collections.
