Agra unit to turn waste to wood

Govardhan Udyog plans to use cowdung to produce particle board.

Faced with the task of developing environment-friendly technology for industry due to guidelines issued by the Supreme Court, entrepreneurs in Agra are realising the cost-effective potential of such technologies and innovations.

Govardhan Udyog is one such unit which plans to use a non-conventional raw material, cowdung, to produce particle board and pharmaceutical products. The unit was inaugurated this week on the Agra-Delhi national highway near the Mathura refinery, about 55 km from Agra.

Company sources said the basic raw material used in the manufacture of particle board will be cow dung. This will perhaps make it the first particle board manufacturing facility using cowdung as the raw material.

Govardhan Udyog Managing Director SK Mittal said particle boards were emerging as a viable alternative in designing office furniture and automation products in the country as compared to plyboards. The product has been posting demands of over 100,000 mega tonne (MT) a year. However, the production and demand for plyboards was falling drastically due to the negative environmental impact of the product. In 1997, the Supreme Court restricted the cutting of trees for manufacturing plywood as it required huge quantities of fresh wood and other ligneous wastes.

Govardhan Udyog will use a locally developed technology for the manufacture of particle board from cow dung.

Mittal said the company was purchasing cow dung at Rs 2 per kg for use in the manufacture of cheap and eco-friendly particle boards, while cow urine was being purchased at Rs 5 per litre for manufacture of domestic phenyl and other pharmaceutical products. Currently, the plant was consuming about 2 MT cow dung and was producing 5,000 square ft of particle board per day. The production is expected to reach about 40,000 square ft per day by the next quarter, further dropping the production overheads and thereby, making the end-product cheaper than the conventional products available in the market.

The range of products included particle boards of varying thickness. The thickness ranged from 2 mm to 40 mm. Depending on thickness, each of the processes required different compositions of up to 80 per cent cow dung mixed with bonding agents according to required application.

Mittal said currently, the company’s efforts were directed towards the marketing of these particle boards for manufacture of office automation products.

He added the firm also planned a third unit for the manufacture of products like dhoop, agarbattis etc., which was expected to begin production by the next fiscal year. The company was also holding discussions with a major ayurvedic pharmaceutical company for bulk sales of ayurvedic medicines prepared with cow urine.

According to Mittal, since the company was a new entrant in the business and the raw material for the product being manufactured was slightly unconventional, an elaborate marketing strategy was being planned, which included hiring a large workforce of unemployed youth from the region besides employing a professional marketing agency to publicise the eco-friendly aspects of this product.