C&D plant to mitigate ‘growing pressure’ on India’s resources

India – A serious shortage of aggregates in India’s building sector has led to the opening of what is said to be India’s first construction and demolition (C&D) waste recycling plant, Waste Management World reports.

The facility, in New Delhi, has a capacity of 500 tonnes per day and is the result of a collaboration between the Municipal Corporation of Delhi and the environmental arm of Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services. Built on 3 ha of marshland, it is designed to create recycled aggregate from the C&D waste for use in brick making and road building.

Such a site is sorely needed, the project partners argue, since India’s building industry faces a shortage of aggregates estimated at 55 billion cubic metres. The country generates roughly 15 million tonnes of C&D waste per year, which was previously dumped in landfill and has put growing pressure’ on natural resources, according to the government’s Central Public Health and Environmental Engineering Organisation.

Waste is received from three zones in Delhi: Karol Bagh, Sadar Paharganj and the City. Large pieces of material are reduced to 200mm-400mm by mechanical and manual means. Further size reduction is achieved through a combination of wet processing and crushing.

The C&D recycling facility was established on a public-private partnership (PPP) basis and US$3.32 million was allocated to the project, which will run for at least 10 years.