GP in Puttur crushes liquor bottle waste into reusable ‘sand’

Mangaluru: Aryapu gram panchayat in Puttur has begun recycling broken liquor and wine bottles into sand-like material that can potentially be used for construction, offering a solution to a long-standing glass waste problem.The panchayat has installed a glass bottle crushing machine that converts waste glass into fine particles known as ‘glass sand'. The material is currently being tested in a pilot project where it is mixed with cement to build a wall. Officials said it is safe to handle and does not pose a risk of cuts or injuries.The initiative was led by panchayat development officer (PDO) Nagesh M, who said broken glass had been a major hazard for sanitation workers handling door-to-door garbage collection."Sanitation workers were scared to even touch broken glass because of the risk of injuries. I kept thinking about how to solve the problem," he told TOI.While intact liquor bottles could be resold, broken glass had no disposal mechanism and often ended up along roadsides or mixed with household waste.Nagesh said he came across the glass bottle crushing machine through a YouTube video while searching for solutions online. He later contacted a company in Chennai and found the machine was available in Coimbatore at a cost of Rs 4.2 lakh. The machine can crush all kinds of glass into fine particles resembling sand.As the panchayat could not afford the machine on its own, the PDO approached Canara Bank for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) support, citing the panchayat's banking relationship. The proposal was approved within a month, and the machine was installed in Feb, he said, thanking the bank and officials.The panchayat, which covers around 2,300 households in Aryapu and Kurya villages, collects waste three times a week and receives nearly 100 to 150 kg of glass bottles every week, most of them liquor bottles. "The initiative is possibly the first of its kind among gram panchayats in Karnataka and could become a model for scientific disposal and recycling of glass waste," Nagesh said.