Kalamassery biomining has reached 85% completion after work at the municipal dumping yard resumed following a pause caused by the monsoon, with 8,054.90 cubic metres of legacy waste still to be processed, according to an official overseeing the project under the Kerala Solid Waste Management Project (KSWMP).
The second phase of the work is aimed at clearing waste accumulated at the site over nearly three decades and reclaiming the land for future use. The project had been suspended during the rains because of adverse weather conditions and resumed in September, the report said.
The dumping yard contains a total of 48,159.71 cubic metres of waste. The remaining material will be processed through biomining, a method used to excavate, segregate and recover usable or combustible material from old waste deposits. The work is being carried out at a 1.95-acre site located between the Kalamassery railway station and Apollo Tyres along the National Highway.
“Currently 85% of the work is done. Once we get a prolonged dry spell, we could complete it at the earliest,” a KSWMP official overseeing the process was quoted as saying. The statement links the completion timeline directly to weather conditions, which affect the handling and processing of the waste mound.
The site’s waste mound rises 11 metres above ground level and extends 8.5 metres below the surface. Once the material is removed and the land is levelled, the site can be considered for other uses. The report did not specify what use has been planned for the reclaimed land.
As part of the clearance process, around 5,750 metric tonnes of refuse-derived fuel (RDF) recovered from the waste have been transported to a private cement company. RDF is a combustible material separated from mixed waste and can be used as an industrial fuel. Its movement to a cement facility indicates that at least part of the excavated material is being diverted from continued storage at the dumping yard.
The project is being implemented under KSWMP, a state government initiative supported by the World Bank. A firm based in Nagpur has been awarded the contract for the biomining work. The project’s immediate operational milestone is the processing of the remaining 8,054.90 cubic metres of waste and the subsequent levelling of the site.
The completion of the work remains dependent on a prolonged dry spell, according to the official quoted in the report. Until the remaining waste is processed and the land is levelled, the Kalamassery site will continue to remain an active legacy-waste clearance location within a densely connected urban area.
