Blue Planet realizes its end to end vision with Zigma, India’s largest landfill mining company

India, 1st April 2020 – Blue Planet Environmental Solutions Pte Ltd (Blue Planet), Asia's leading sustainable waste management company, today announced a significant investment in Zigma Global Environ Solutions Pvt Ltd (Zigma), India's largest landfill mining company. Zigma specializes in landfill mining and full reclamation of land which is contaminated with legacy waste and suffers from environmental pollution and degradation. Founded in 2015, the company provides a sustainable solution involving multi-step segregation, treatment and recycling to clear landfills of deposited refuse.

"By adding Zigma to our portfolio of solutions to treat organic, plastic and inert waste, we can now offer governments an integrated solution to tackle its problematic landfills. Apart from significantly improving resource recovery, our technologies can also drastically reduce or eliminate the negative impact of existing landfill sites," said Madhujeet Chimni, co-founder of Blue Planet. Globally, landfills are a substantial source of anthropogenic greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change. Governments, in Asia in particular, are developing enhanced waste handling measures to cut landfill disposal rates and combat the rising volume of waste generated.

However, this alone will not be able to address the dangerous fugitive methane emitted from existing landfills. Chimni added: "Besides upcycling and recycling freshly generated waste, Blue Planet's vision is to offer the technological capabilities to clear vast areas containing mountains of waste. We have taken a significant step in realizing our vision through this investment in Zigma, which can convert unsanitary dumpsites that are a threat to public health into land, which can be utilized for waste processing plants, parks and other productive uses".

Turning legacy waste into an opportunity Open dumps are a major cause of social concern for local authorities as it is accompanied by underground water pollution, soil contamination and emission of flammable and toxic gasses. "In India, there are about 23,000 open dumpsites which emit harmful gasses and puts public health at risk. We saw the immediate need to develop a solution to clear legacy dumps, avoid continuous contamination of groundwater and air and remediate land for regional development," said Nagesh Prabhu, Director of Zigma.

Zigma has cleared multiple open dumpsites since 2015 in India and aims to clear a total of 3 million tons of waste by 2021 and 10 million tons by the end of 2022. "Previously landfill capping was the only solution that existed but we saw potential in landfill mining to be a successful socio-economic business model and developed the required tools and systems, necessary for enhanced scalability and sustainability," added Prabhu. Zigma's process involves landfill mining, which starts with waste composition analysis and pre- stabilisation processes including deodorisation and leachate drainage from open dumpsites. The company leverages online monitoring system with real-time data processing, which is made available to all project owners to ensure high quality of operations. With Blue Planet's strategic investment in Zigma, waste processing can be augmented using Blue Planet technologies to extract and upcycle useable materials and resources. This includes technologies to convert inert waste into concrete blocks, plastic waste to fuel conversion, and decentralised organic waste to energy solutions – where Blue Planet has one of the largest installed bases in India.

Zigma has completed multiple landfill mining projects in various states like Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and others and is currently undertaking 16 projects in various parts of the country. "As we expand and look at opportunities in ASEAN and the Middle East market, our partnership with Blue Planet takes us a step closer towards the overall vision of creating a cleaner world. We will do this by combining best practises in waste management with advanced technologies from around the world," added Ilangovan, CEO at Zigma.

"Zigma's solution is aligned to our vision of creating circular economy solutions and brings us closer to creating an integrated sustainable waste management model," said Prashant Singh, co-founder/CEO of Blue Planet. Singh added: "With Blue Planet's experience in handling waste projects in Asia, we aim to help Zigma in expanding its footprint in the waste management sector around the region, and contribute to sustainable economies around Asia." Blue Planet recently announced a strategic investment of US$25 million made by Nomura, to further efforts to develop an integrated and inclusive waste management solutions for the region.

Since October 2018, Blue Planet has completed a string of acquisitions which includes Rudra Environmental Solutions (India), Yasasu Environmental Management Services (India), Xeon Waste Managers LLP (India), Globecycle Holding Sdn Bhd (Malaysia), Virtus Concrete Solutions Ltd (UK) and Smart Creative Technologies Ltd (UK). About Blue Planet Environmental Solution Pte Ltd: Blue Planet is a Singapore headquartered company driving regional sustainability through technology- driven and IP based end-to-end solutions for waste management and upcycling. Blue Planet has assembled a strong team of experts to lead its growth and has strategically acquired solutions which enable it to provide the collection, transportation, segregation, processing and treatment of waste. Blue Planet's key investors include the Neev Fund which is an infrastructure-focused private equity fund that was created as a partnership between State Bank of India (SBI) and the UK Government's Department for International Development (DFID) with a focus on achieving long-standing capital appreciation by promoting sustainable models of development to focus on low-income states in India.

Website: www.blue-planet.com About Zigma Global Environ Solutions Pvt Ltd Zigma was founded in 2015 in India and headquartered at Erode, Tamil Nadu which pioneered integrated landfill mining. Since its pilot project in Kumbakonam, Tamil Nadu, Zigma has won several awards for innovation and best sustainable practices in waste management in India. In 2017, Zigma associated with Forcebel, a South Korean Landfill Mining major which was credited with successful reclamation of more than 100 dumpsites across the globe. Zigma today employs more than 600 personnel across its various plants and processes over 10,000 tonnes of waste per day.

Website: www.zigma.in PWR PWR.

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