Dumping garbage at other sites not a solution, say experts

More than one-fourth of Delhi’s garbage will now be dumped at a new site in north Delhi’s Rani Khera from Sunday, after Delhi lieutenant governor Anil Baijal banned dumping of garbage at Ghazipur with immediate effect on Saturday afternoon. It is not feasible to take the garbage all the way from east to North Delhi every day.” “Considering there is no availability of land in Delhi, it is important to aggressively work upon increasing capacity of waste-to-energy plant and compost system as short-term measures,” added Mehra. “And as the land gets cleared, it should be redeveloped as engineered landfill site which will be operational forever and provide solution for treating leachete as well as harmful gasses.” A senior MCD official said that non-availability of land is among the major hurdles MCD faces in disposing off waste. In fact we are already facing these issues at recently sanctioned sites by DDA recently in North Delhi.” Ravi Agarwal, director of the NGO Toxics Link, also accepted that discontinuing the garbage at Ghazipur landfill is not a permanent solution. Experts also pointed out that rather than depending on landfill sites, it’s time Delhi focuses on processing of garbage in large quantity.