Mumbai plant to turn plastic waste into fuel

The city-based Sustainable Technologies & Environmental Projects (STEPS) plans to set up a plant to convert plastic waste into light diesel, calorific value combustible gas and carbon pellets.

The company has also succeeded in generating diesel from algae, for which it won the Lockheed Martin Innovations Award three times.

“We can generate diesel from algae through pyro-catalysis. We also plan to set up a 25-tonne a day capacity plant near Mumbai shortly with financial assistance from Tata Capital. It will be a multi-feed processing plant between Vasai and Bhiwandi,” STEPS Director, Mr T. Raghavendra Rao, said.

Poly-crack technology

Mr Rao said light diesel oil can be used to run a diesel electric generator and it can be further purified into petrol, kerosene and diesel. It can also be purified into aviation turbine fuel. Recently, the company inked a 51:49 joint venture with the US-based Masada Corporation to set up bio-methanol plant using its poly-crack technology.

Negotiations for similar joint ventures are also at an advanced stage with PTFCV of the Netherlands, Ecosphere of Germany and Agrupalmeria of Spain, as well as UP Solutions, based in Austin, US, Mr Rao said.

“We are talking to the carpet industry which generates a lot of plastic waste due to discarded carpets. We are also talking to several industries like sugar, breweries and municipal sewerage waste plants and effluent treatment plants to source raw material,” he said.

The Mumbai city administration has already started a pilot project at Kandivli using STEPS' technology.

The company is also talking to other municipal bodies at Pimpri-Chinchwad, Visakhapatnam, Satara, Kolhapur, Ulhasnagar and Kalyan-Dombivili to convert municipal sewerage waste into value-added products, he said.