Ghaziabad to dispose of 600k metric tonnes of legacy waste by March 2022

Ghaziabad: The city will be able to get rid of about 600,000 metric tonnes of legacy waste at two landfill sites -- one in Indirapuram and the other in Pratap Vihar -- by the end of March next year, officials said on Saturday

Ghaziabad: The city will be able to get rid of about 600,000 metric tonnes of legacy waste at two landfill sites -- one in Indirapuram and the other in Pratap Vihar -- by the end of March next year, officials said on Saturday.

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The officials said that the Pratap Vihar landfill site has about 450,000 metric tonnes of waste. In January 2019, the UP solid waste monitoring committee, set up on directions of the National Green Tribunal, directed for stoppage of dumping of solid waste at the Pratap Vihar site.

“Accordingly, we selected an agency that has recently started work for removal of the legacy waste dumped at the Pratap Vihar site. The work that was supposed to start in March 2021 got delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. It is expected that the waste will be converted into manure by March 2022, and thereafter the land will be handed over to UP Avas Vikas. ,” said MS Tanwar, commissioner of Ghaziabad municipal corporation.

The officials said that at the Indirapuram landfill, about 150,000 metric tonnes of legacy waste will be cleared.

“The work is already in progress at the Indirapuram site. It’s being done by the same agency that has been awarded work at the Pratap Vihar site. The processing of one metric tonne of waste will cost ₹308. The work at the Indirapuram site is expected to get complete by October this year,” said Tanwar.

The municipal commissioner said that the corporation has proposed setting up several small garbage factories in different areas for disposal of daily solid waste.

The Pratap Vihar landfill in the past faced a lot of opposition from residents of nearby Siddharth Vihar. Besides, the waste monitoring committee also said that the site, which is close to the river Hindon, would contaminate groundwater over a period of time.

Similarly, the open dumping of solid waste and frequent incidents of fire also faced opposition by residents in Indirapuram. In 2018, the Confederation of trans-Hindon RWAs moved NGT and contended non-compliance of Solid Waste (Management and Handling) Rules, 2016 at the dumping site. Following the directions of the tribunal, the authorities started the bioremediation process at the site in October 2020.