Cowdung and kitchen wastes will turn into cooking gas everyday at the Bombay Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) Hospital, which has installed a biogas plant on its Lower Parel premises.

The organic conversion will involve no extra energy or electricity. What’s more, the refuse from the plant can be used as pure manure, sending no wastes into the environment.

Hospital authorities said the plant, worth around Rs 3.75 lakh, was donated by the Rotary Club of Bombay, Nariman Point. It would not just put an end to the daily LPG consumption but also reduce pollution caused by cowdung disposal.

“As of date, we use at least two LPG cylinders everyday to boil about 100 litres of milk and cook 150 kg rice and meat for animals. Now, we expect to save Rs 1.2 lakh a year that we spent on LPG cylinders. The plant will produce methane which can be regularly used for cooking with no fear of accident or extra expenditure,” said Lt Col (retd) Dr J C Khanna, secretary of SPCA.

The hospital collects an average 40 to 50 kg of dung from the cattle ward every day. The biogas plant can produce and store about 5,000 litres of cooking gas, Khanna said.

The installation is the SPCA’s second step towards green living. In 2006, it began harvesting rainwater. “Today, we use about 20,000 litres natural water everyday, saving the cost of three to four tankers we’d require just three years ago,” Khanna said.

... contd.