Bhubaneswar: In order to use the residual green garbage waste inside the 55 parks of Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) has created 220 composting pits in its 55 parks across the city.
The Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA) on the other hand, which manages the big parks from 5 acres to more than 20 acres of size has started new green composting pits at Madhusudan Park, Netaji Subash Chandra Park and Kharavela Park in a large scale to use the residual and especially leaves and other parts of the trees collected from the parks during cleaning process.
BDA has already introduced composte pits at three major city parks and is using them regularly much before 2019. However, with the huge green waste generated following the severe cyclonic storm Fani on May 3 with the wind speed over 200 km, the development authority has added three more parks as mentioned above. It has three composte pits in Biju Patnaik Park, one in Indira Gandhi Park and two in Buddha Jayanti Park.
BMC Additional Commissioner Ananya Das said ‘’the generation of green composte will also help in producing quality green manure and that would be used in city-based parks for better growth of saplings as there will be compensatory plantations in all the green spaces to revive their canopy cover and greenery.’’
BDA Chief Horticulturist Ashokananda Dhar explained ‘’we cannot use all types of pits like pits with more depth and also left out old laterite quarries found near some of our parks as the depth of the composte pit should not be more than 5 to 6 feet. Also the pits need to have adequate sun light for the conversion of green waste to manure.’’
A staff of a private cleaning agency stationed at Biju Patnaik Park said “the green composte pits are sprinkled with water manually or through use of drip irrigation and chemicals, bio digesters and jaggery (gur) are applied to make the composting process faster. The composte pits produce high quality green manure which is best suited for rearing saplings to be used for the afforestation work after the Fani devastation.’’
The city parks, both belonging to BMC and BDA have experienced one of the most severe natural calamities with massive damage to the green cover and tree loss. The green composting will help in reviving the parks as it would help in producing the manure for regeneration and growth of new plants.
City-based environmentalist Bijay Mishra said “not only government agencies and civic authorities, but also individual and educational institutions should also take up composting of the green waste in a mission mode and once the manure is harvested, the same could be used for planting trees around.’’
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