Capital gets plant for recycling religious texts

Official says boxes would be placed in different areas for people to drop off sacred papers

ISLAMABAD:

The Ministry of Religious Affairs has approved a project to establish a recycling plant in the capital to dispose of old pages of the Quran.

The project, which had been in the doldrums since 2016, was approved at a Departmental Development Working Party's meeting of the ministry chaired by Religious Affairs and Interfaith Harmony Secretary Sardar Ajaz Ahmad Khan Jaffar.

Jaffer said that the sacred papers recycling plant would be constructed on 10 kanals of land in the Haji camp on the outskirts of Islamabad and it would cost Rs331 million.

This will be the country’s first such recycling plant.

The official said that the ministry had identified a site for the plant near Haji camp. He said that the plant would be constructed by the Pakistan Public Works Department within one year.

He was of the view that the recycling plant would help overcome blasphemous incidents caused by the disrespect of the religious text.

The official said that after the establishment of the plant, boxes would be set up in different parts of the city for people to drop off text and paper.

The plant will have a daily capacity of recycling one ton of papers.

The Senate Standing Committee on Religious Affairs and Interfaith Harmony and the Council of Islamic Ideology has already approved the recycling plant.

The process of recycling would include pulping, deinking and new paper making. The ink would be removed in a flotation process where air would be blown into the solution. The ink would rise to the surface in adherence to bubbles of air from where it would be separated. After the ink was separated, the fibre may be bleached, usually with hydrogen peroxide, oxygen or chlorine dioxide.

The official also said that a new Haji camp in Lahore would be constructed on 57 kanals of land in Harbanspura at an estimated cost of Rs1,996 million in three years.

He said it would be comprised of a residential block, training hall, cafeteria, mosque, and administrative block besides private banks and airlines counters etcetera.

The boundaries of the Haji camp in Lahore had already been completed, he added.

He said a solar tube well was also being erected in the Haji camp Quetta for Rs15 million. The meeting was also attended by the representatives of the finance and planning divisions, PWD, Pakistan Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, Council for Islamic Ideology and Pakistan Environment Protection Agency.

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