Delhi LG seeks plan to flatten landfills in city

In a move that may help speed up the flattening of the trash mountains, Delhi LG Vinai Kumar Saxwena asked the MCD officials to regularly put out in public domain the reduction in height of the trash mountains achieved at the three sites.

After visiting the 65m-high trash mountain in Ghazipur on Sunday, Lieutenant Governor V K Saxena directed officials to chalk out a detailed plan of action within three days to completely flatten the three trash mountains of the Capital – the landfill sites at Ghazipur, Bhalswa (62m high) and Okhla (60m high). The L-G will himself monitor the execution of the action plan, said officials in the know of the matter.

Newly-appointed Delhi LG Vinai Kumar Saxena. (PTI Photo/Kamal Kishore)

“The L-G issued categorical instructions to officers to submit a plan of action within the next three days for complete razing of all three garbage mountains situated at Ghazipur, Bhalswa and Okhla. He also instructed that a dedicated team of officers be constituted to draw out the plan of action mentioning a fixed date of completion,” the L-G’s office issued a statement.

In a move that may help speed up the flattening of the trash mountains, the L-G asked the MCD officials to regularly put out in public domain the reduction in height of the trash mountains achieved at the three sites. He emphasised that lapses will be taken seriously and responsibility will be fixed.

Saxena also suggested adopting reverse engineering model so as to ensure that the deadlines fixed by the MCD are met and the goals achieved, said an official from the L-G’s office.

“The action plan to be submitted by MCD will be monitored on a regular basis by the L-G himself and if required, he would visit the site at regular intervals to see actual progress,” said the statement issued by the L-G office. To monitor the progress on a weekly basis, a special cell will also be put in place at the L-G Secretariat.

Saxena stood atop the Ghazipur landfill site on Sunday and spent over two hours inspecting the trash mountain, the nearby areas, the recycling work and gathering feedback from officers. “The L-G inspected various activities and the surroundings so as to get a first-hand feel of the intensity and magnitude of the problem at hand,” said the official.

Saxena was accompanied by chief secretary Naresh Kumar, MCD’s special officer Ashwini Kumar, MCD commissioner Gyanesh Bharti among other officials.

Spread over 70 acres, the Ghazipur landfill site has legacy waste amounting to 14 million metric tonnes. The East Delhi areas, that the landfill caters to, generates 2,600 metric tonnes of waste on a daily basis. Similarly, Bhalswa in north Delhi and Okhla in south Delhi shelters mounds of legacy waste amounting to eight million and five million metric tonnes respectively.

The solid waste at these sites are of three categories – refuse derived fuel (RDF), construction & demolition (C&D) and inert waste. While the RDF waste is being used to generate power from ‘waste-to-energy’ plants, a small quantity of inert waste is being used by NHAI for road construction activities, the processed C&D waste can be used for construction and filling activities, the L-G office said.

The L-G reviewed the ongoing work of bio-remediation at the site, which also involves segregation of waste and off take of recycled garbage. He directed the Ghazipur ‘waste-to-energy’ plant be operationalized at the earliest so that the amount of fresh waste being added to the site is reduced.

“After the L-G was informed that off take of recycled construction and demolition waste was an issue of concern, he suggested the possibility of making it available to the general people, builders and construction firms in NCR region...He suggested that apart from addressing the issue of off take, it will also result in revenue generation,” the LG office stated.

Saxena also directed the officials to explore if the state governments are interested in using the inert waste from the landfills for road construction activities. The NHAI is currently using a small quantity of inert waste from Ghazipur landfill for constructing roads.

The L-G observed that the recycling activities being undertaken at the landfill is generating a lot of dust, adding to the haze and pollution in the adjoining areas. He asked officers to address the issue by using recycled water from the nearby sewage treatment plant for sprinkling and settling the dust, said the L-G office.

Saxena also emphasized on the need to involve more people, NGOs, ragpickers and other civil society groups in the efforts to improve the landscape of the national capital and make the city free of garbage mountains. He also advised that experts should be consulted so that innovative technologies can be put to use for the completion of the process.

Various estimates show that the rapidly expanding capital city generates around 4,000-5,000 metric tonnes of debris and construction waste every day and the local bodies of Delhi have already operationalized four C&D waste processing plants with cumulative capacity of 4,150 tons per day (TPD).

Three more processing plants are in the pipeline at Rani Khera, Libaspur and Tehkhand in the outskirts of the city, which will further raise the daily processing capacity to 6,650 tonnes per day. However, several concerns regarding slow uptake of recycled products, collection mechanism and the quality of the recycled products have surfaced from time to time. The five local bodies of the city- three corporations, Delhi Cantonment and the NDMC- have designated a total of 212 sites, where construction waste can be legally deposited by the residential and small-scale generators.

While the city continues to progressively upgrade its processing capacity, the slow uptake of recycled products still remains a key concern. In 2016, the Delhi government had issued an advisory asking all public agencies to mandate 5% use of such products for non-structural applications while examining and approving building plans.

Atin Biswas, programme director of municipal solid waste, Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), who is part of an ongoing study of landfill sites across the country, said using the inert materials for gainful application is a good idea but the process must encompass a test procedure to check whether the extracted fraction from the legacy dump has presence of chemicals and heavy metals beyond the prescribed standards.

“Using the inert waste for road construction is one of the best ways to use it. If tests are not being conducted, then it should always be used in a containment system, such as using it with a liner at the bottom, to protect the soil from any possible contamination. It is very likely that the inert materials may have presence of harmful chemicals and heavy metals; therefore its disposal requires proper planning and a protocol of environmental safeguard standard and it should never be allowed to be dumped in open mines otherwise,” said Biswas.

“...When biomining is carried out, around 60-70% ends up as inert waste. Some recent studies indicated presence of heavy metals and chemical contaminants in the biomined fractions. Therefore, open dumping of inert waste from a garbage mountain in abandoned mines without testing could contaminate the ground water table. It’s best gainful application is in construction of highways, flyovers etc but necessary caution,” he said.