2.75 million tonnes of waste remaining; Bhalswa to be cleared by December: Mayor

Delhi Mayor Pravesh Wahi aims to complete biomining at Bhalswa landfill by December 2026, reducing waste from 8M to 1.35M metric tonnes.

New Delhi: Delhi’s newly elected Mayor Pravesh Wahi on Thursday reviewed the biomining and bioremediation operations at the Bhalswa landfill site and reiterated that the garbage mound will be flattened by December 2026.

Mayor Pravesh Wahi said the height of the legacy waste mountain at the Bhalswa site has been reduced from 65 metres to about 30 metres. (HT Archive)

Wahi said that about 1.35 million metric tonnes of legacy waste remain at the landfill. With 1.4 million tonnes of fresh waste dumped at the site, Bhalswa now holds around 2.75 million tonnes of garbage, he added.

“The maximum height of the legacy waste mountain at the Bhalswa site has been reduced from 65 metres to about 30 metres. By the end of December 2026, the biomining work at the Bhalswa landfill site will be completed and the legacy waste will be fully disposed of,” Wahi said.

The mayor issued directives to accelerate the biomining operations and deployment of additional machinery to expedite the disposal of the legacy waste.

The work of disposing of legacy waste at the Bhalswa site commenced in 2019 following the National Green Tribunal (NGT) order. At that time, the site held about 8 million tonnes of legacy waste. A drone survey in 2022 assessed that about 7.3 million metric tonnes of legacy waste was present at the site in 2022.

In the first phase of biomining, 4.5 million metric tonnes of legacy waste were disposed of. Wahi said that the second phase of legacy waste disposal began in December 2024, during which an additional 4.34 million metric tonnes of legacy waste were disposed of.