Goemkarponn Desk
CANACONA- The Material Recovery Facilities (MRF) Site, equipped with an advanced Composting Unit and and Baling Machine to treat the Wet and Dry Garbage, at Tourem-Moll, Agonda has become a face-saving factor to bring out the village from the ever burning and day-by-day turning murkier garbage imbroglio.
The MRF site, also refered to as Garbage Disposal plant has infact has solely become the only hope, brought the succour and much of the aspiration to change the image of once garbage infested, but world acclaimed and top-rated beaches not only in the Country, but often international travellers ranked Agonda beach at nbo.1 in the Asia and within top ten in the world travel list of most preferred beaches.
Built at the sprawling communidade land of 5,011, acquired after a lengthy process which began was set in motion in the year 2008, the MRF at Tourem-Moll, Agonda has an advanced Composting Unit, which have a capacity to treat a maximum of 1.5 Ton of Wet Garbage, and more importantly turn it in manure in less than 24 hours.
Now with the Swatch Bharat mission -II being strongly followed with active participation of sarpanch Fatima Rodrigues, Agonda panchayat is putting the facilities for the maximum usage for which the MRF is meant for..
Incidentally, on receipt of an average 1200 kgs a day wet garbage, the same is segregated taking out/separating all the non-biodegradable materials and only degradable material is processed at Agonda MRF site, giving an output of very rich and valuable natural manure. The unit is fitted and operated by Ecozen Natural, as the only such composting unit used in the whole of Goa State.
According to the Ecozen Natural owner-cum-operator Sidharth, the wet waste collection goes above the capacity of the composting unit during the peak tourism season and especially on weekends, and moreover a 2nd Unit may be needed to deal with/treat the ever-increasing wet waste collections from the increasing tourism activities mushrooming on the village coast.
All the non-degradable and dry waste is treated at the Balling Machine also operated by panchayat engaged personnel at the same MRF site.
According to Panchcyat Secretary Amol Naikgaunkar, MRF gets on an average 800-900 kgs of dry waste daily, which is collected by panchayat engaged workers in a door-oto-door, roadside and beachside collections. The same is balled at the Baling Machine, also operated by Panchayat workers.
Incidentally, the MRF site at Agonda is the out come of the Rural Garbage Disposla Scheme-2005 ad while file was first moved in 2006 to acquire land for disposing garbage in accordance to the high court directives, the things began to move only after 2008, with the than sarpanch Jovi Fernandes successfully earmarked suitable vacant land and also received an award order for possession of 5,011 sqm at Toureamoll-Agonda. With a panchayat contribution of 7.47 lakhs ,, 17 lakhs were paid to Communidade of Canacona (owner of land), however with the final aware of only 6.82 lakhs communidade had to return the balance amount back to the local body.
Post 2019 when government introduced the Material Recovery Facilities (MRF) at the village and cluster level to identify land for the storage, segregation and treatment of waste, this same land is put to use to construct the shed housing the Balling Machine and an advanced Composting Unit, the first and only type in the whole of Goa state.
The foundation was laid in May 2021 and the waste Management Facilities Shed under Swatch Bharat Mission Grameen Phase-II was commission exactly one year later in May’2022 both the activities during the tenure of ex-Sarpanch Badal Naik Gaonkar and panchayat Secretary Amol Nasik Gaonkar, and since than it is being successfully used as Material Recovery Facilities (MRF) Site.
An MRF is a specialised plant that receives, separates and prepares recyclable materials, and composts organic waste. As part of the action plan, the department has also prepared a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for door-to-door collection of waste, handling, transportation, storage and disposal of biodegradable and nonbiodegradable waste at the village level, which is all Agonda panchayat is doing.
According to Sidharth of Ecozen Natural, all other compositing units are taking 12-15 days for the composting process , whereas the unit which his company innovated takes within 24 hours to give the best compost ever, making it very advanced.
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