Similar to any other institution considerable quantity of both Biodegradable and Non-biodegradable wastes are produced during routine official activities at Proof & Experimental Establishment (PXE), an ISO 9001: 2008 certified premier establishment of Defence Research & Development Organization (DRDO). After carrying out a survey for quantifying the waste materials following four options are adopted for management of solid wastes at PXE instead of older practice of open burning or dumping in low lying field for filling up the areas: (a) Non-biodegradable but sellable wastes such as fired ammunitions, & their used cartridges, fuzes and primers; condemned metallic stores, unserviceable MT vehicles and their parts; hard plastic covers of different parts of ammunitions; unserviceable instruments, etc. which are sold to outside vendors by auction through Metal Scrap Trading Corporation (MSTC), Visakhapatnam, (b) Non-biodegradable but non-sellable waste materials such as broken glasses, used plastic sheets/bottles/packets, thermocole packing materials, rubber scraps, leather goods and small metallic items, damaged electronic parts like computer floppies, CDs, printer ink, ribbon, different instrument's defective parts, etc. are dumped being hazardous and toxic in nature inside the soil pit away from the office area, (c) Biodegradable wastes like used paper, cardboard, damaged book, condemned office files, old brochures, small and unimportant reports, flower garden wastes, lawn cuttings, sweeping wastes and packing materials made of jute, cloths and straw, etc. are collected and vermicomposted using
Biodegradable wastes, Biogas production, Dumping of wastes, Environmental pollution, Institutional solid wastes, Non-biodegradable wastes, Vermicomposting
