Lahore to get biogas from animal waste

Project expected to earn 275,000 tonnes of carbon credits, $4.2 million annual income

LAHORE:

Instead of dumping the thousands of tonnes of animal waste produced daily by abattoirs into landfills along with municipal garbage, the Lahore Waste Management Company (LWMC) plans to process it into low-cost biogas fuel under a 'Waste to Value Project'.

LWMC spokesperson Omar Chaudhry was quoted as saying in a news release issued on Tuesday, "We have successfully experimented with the extraction of biogas from animal waste. It's currently a pilot project with a generation capacity of 25,000 kilogrammes of biogas per day."

The project is expected to help earn 275,000 tonnes of carbon credits and $4.2 million in annual income from the rehabilitation of a waste disposal site, he said.

He explained that the facility would initially process 1,000 tonnes of offal, intestines and dung. This waste-to-value green carbon credit facility is being set up at a cost of Rs3 million.

The spokesperson said the plant containing anaerobic digesters would also produce a byproduct used as manure for kitchen gardening and horticulture.

He said similar initiatives might be launched in other districts under the Suthra Punjab campaign.

In addition to slaughterhouses operated by the district government, Lahore has 11 privately-owned abattoirs registered with the Pakistan Halal Council, besides a meat complex run by Punjab Agriculture and Meat Company (PAMCO) in Shahpur Kanjran.