An appealing garden graces the Hubli kitchen campus, adding a serene quality to the sleek modern architecture of the building. Immaculately maintained, it is a testament to Akshaya Patra’s ‘go green’ efforts in Hubli, where we are aiming for ISO14000 certification.
One of the successful initiatives of these efforts is the effluent treatment plant (ETP) that has been running for nearly a year. Laxman Wakkunda, who is part of the team responsible for smooth running of the ETP explains how the plant functions. “Water from vegetable cutting, rice cleaning and vessel washing all comes in separately to the plant,” he says, pointing to pipes leading from the kitchen into the ETP. It flows naturally into a series of troughs of differing heights, getting progressively cleaner as it flows from one trough to another. Laxman prepares the culture needed to clean the water everyday, which includes approximately 2kgs of sugar and half a kg of salt. “We use around 20 liters of it daily,” he adds. “We prepare it 24 hours in advance.”
Maintaining and running the ETP is a 24 hour job according to him. “The kitchen shift starts as early as 2:30 in the morning, and our work begins from then,” he says. Laxman works together with his co-worker Hanumanth Gathanavar to manage the day to day operations of the plant.
