This post is created by The Better India and sponsored by Wingify Earth.

India has experienced 76 major disasters caused by the breaching of ash ponds over the past decade, which have damaged crops, inundated villages, and resulted in property damage and loss of human life.

According to a report titled ‘Coal Ash in India’: A Compendium of Disasters, Environmental and Health Risks, by the Healthy Energy Initiative India, the hazardous and disaster-prone product is fly ash. Despite the availability of technology to prevent such incidents, fly ash generated by Thermal Power Plants (TPPs) has been accumulating in ponds due to a lack of value-added applications. Only 60% of the 250 million tonnes of fly ash produced by TPPs is being used by the construction industry, with the remaining 40% causing disasters by being dumped in ash ponds and open grounds.

To combat this problem, the Institute for Solid Waste Research and Ecological Balance (INSWAREB) in Visakhapatnam has developed Nano Concrete Aggregate (NACA). The product has been chosen as one of the top ten innovations from India for presentation at the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction in Bali, Indonesia, by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) from May 23 to 28.

NACA can completely substitute natural stone aggregate (NSA) for cement concrete applications, and engineering studies have shown that it can replace NSA for developing concrete up to 40-60 MPa. The invention was patented in 2010 and has received the first prize at the National Grand Challenge conducted by NTPC in 2019 for innovative ideas of mass-scale fly ash utilisation.

N Kalidas of INSWAREB has said that NACA provides a significant opportunity to eliminate dumping. Once old dumps in ponds are excavated and put to use, there will be zero dumping. The innovation can also help avoid disasters caused by fly ash accumulation in ponds, and its use can help reduce environmental and health risks. NACA is a promising solution for India’s fly ash problem, and it has the potential to revolutionise the construction industry by offering a sustainable alternative to NSA.

#WingifyEarth encourages such proactive actions to safeguard the environment and keep it clean.

#WingifyEarth in partnership with 'The Better India'