The East Coast Railway (ECoR) will establish a ‘Waste to Energy Plant’ at the Carriage Repair Workshop at Mancheswar area in Bhbaneswar.General manager of ECoR Vidya Bhusan laid the foundation-stone of the proposed plant on Monday, an ECoR statement said.

The plant is first of its kind in Indian railways and third in the country. It is also world’s first patented heterogenous catalytic process which converts multiple feed stocks into hydrocarbon liquid fuels, gas, carbon and water, the release said.

Lots of non-ferrous scrap is being generated in the Carriage Repair Workshop at Mancheswar, which has no efficient method of disposal. Consequently, they find their way to landfills, which is environmentally hazardous. Carriage Repair Workshop, Mancheswar has found a way for tackling this problem in a patented technology which is called Polycrack, the statement said.

The plant has high tolerance to moisture hence drying of waste is not required and waste is processed and reformed within 24 hours. It is an enclosed unit hence the working environment is dust free.

It can be fed with the all types of plastic, petroleum sludge, un-segregated MSW with moisture up to 50 per cent, e–waste, automobile fluff, organic waste including bamboo, garden waste, etc., and Jathropa fruit and palm bunch.

The plant will be ready in four months and the target date of commissioning is January 2020. About Rs 2 crore will be spent for commissioning this plant.