Pollution Reduction
Rice and Wheat are double cropped in the State of Punjab with a very limited window time in sowing of the two crops. This limited time availability has led to Rice stalks being burnt in millions of acres prior to the planting of wheat. This results in enormous environmental damage to surrounding areas. Some of the factors responsible for environmental damage due to stubble burning are:
- Stubble burning, results in emission of harmful gases such as carbon monoxide, N2O, NO2, SO2, CH4 along with particulate matter and hydrocarbons. Each ton of crop residue burnt releases around 3kg of particulate matter, 60 kg of CO, 1,460 kg of CO2, 199_kg of ash and 2kg of SO2. The damage doesn’t end here.
- Stubble burning also takes a heavy toll on soil fertility, resulting in loss of nutrients. Each hectare of paddy straw contains around 39 kg of nitrogen, 6 kg of phosphorus, 140 kg of potassium and around 11 kg of Sulphur. It is estimated that a significant amount of these nutrients is lost due to burning.
This project attempts to reduce the environmental hazard caused due to Rice stubble burning by adapting State of the Art technology and machinery coupled with scientific storage and disposal of the Rice stubble.