@ Vikas Sharma | Sr Journalist
India – Blue Planet Environmental Solutions Pte Ltd (Blue Planet), Asia’s leading sustainable waste management company, today announced a significant investment in Zigma Global Environ Solutions Pvt Ltd (Zigma), India’s largest landfill mining company.
Zigma specializes in landfill mining and full reclamation of land which is contaminated with legacy waste and suffers from environmental pollution and degradation. Founded in 2015, the company provides a sustainable solution involving multi-step segregation, treatment, and recycling to clear landfills of deposited refuse.
“By adding Zigma to our portfolio of solutions to treat organic, plastic and inert waste, we can now offer governments an integrated solution to tackle its problematic landfills. Apart from significantly improving resource recovery, our technologies can also drastically reduce or eliminate the negative impact of existing landfill sites,” said Madhujeet Chimni, co-founder of Blue Planet.
Globally, landfills are a substantial source of anthropogenic greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change. Governments, in Asia in particular, are developing enhanced waste handling measures to cut landfill disposal rates and combat the rising volume of waste generated.
However, this alone will not be able to address the dangerous fugitive methane emitted from existing landfills.
Chimni added: “Besides upcycling and recycling freshly generated waste, Blue Planet’s vision is to offer the technological capabilities to clear vast areas containing mountains of waste. We have taken a significant step in realizing our vision through this investment in Zigma, which can convert unsanitary dumpsites that are a threat to public health into the land, which can be utilized for waste processing plants, parks, and other productive uses”.
Turning legacy waste into an opportunity
Open dumps are a major cause of social concern for local authorities as it is accompanied by underground water pollution, soil contamination and emission of flammable and toxic gasses.
“In India, there are about 23,000 open dumpsites which emit harmful gasses and put public health at risk. We saw the immediate need to develop a solution to clear legacy dumps, avoid continuous contamination of groundwater and air and remediate the land for regional development,” said Nagesh Prabhu, Director of Zigma.
Zigma has cleared multiple open dumpsites since 2015 in India and aims to clear a total of 3 million tonnes of waste by 2021 and 10 million tonnes by the end of 2022. “Previously landfill capping was the only solution that existed but we saw potential in landfill mining to be a successful socio-economic business model and developed the required tools and systems, necessary for enhanced scalability and sustainability” added Prabhu. Zigma’s process involves landfill mining, which starts with waste composition analysis and pre- stabilization processes including deodorization and leachate drainage from open dumpsites. The company leverages an online monitoring system with real-time data processing, which is made available to all project owners to ensure high quality of operations.
Zigma has completed multiple landfill mining projects in various states like Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, and others and is currently undertaking 16 projects in various parts of the country. “As we expand and look at opportunities in ASEAN and the Middle East market, our partnership with Blue Planet takes us a step closer towards the overall vision of creating a cleaner world. We will do this by combining best practices in waste management with advanced technologies from around the world,” added Ilangovan, CEO at Zigma.
“Zigma’s solution is aligned with our vision of creating a circular economy solutions and brings us closer to creating an integrated sustainable waste management model” said Prashant Singh, co-founder/CEO of Blue Planet. Singh added: “With Blue Planet’s experience in handling waste projects in Asia, we aim to help Zigma in expanding its footprint in the waste management sector around the region, and contribute to sustainable economies around Asia.” Blue Planet recently announced a strategic investment of US$25 million made by Nomura, to further efforts to develop an integrated and inclusive waste management solutions for the region.
Since October 2018, Blue Planet has completed a string of acquisitions which includes Rudra Environmental Solutions (India), Yasasu Environmental Management Services (India), Xeon Waste Managers LLP (India), Globecycle Holding Sdn Bhd (Malaysia), Virtus Concrete Solutions Ltd (UK) and Smart Creative Technologies Ltd. (UK)
