Delhi: Civic bodies eye abandoned Bhatti Mines for dumping inert waste

Delhi’s three municipal corporations are on a hunt for a “gigantic” plot -- gigantic enough to accommodate 18 million tonnes of inert waste from the three landfill sites of Okhla, Bhalswa and Ghazipur in Delhi. The civic bodies are now eyeing the abandoned Bhatti Mines in the Southern Ridge and a feasibility study will soon be carried out by the Wildlife Institute of India at the behest of the Ridge Management Board, the body that is mandated to protect the Ridge, a forest department official said, asking not to be named. The three landfills together hold over 280 lakh tonnes of legacy waste and it has been estimated that about 60-70% of the material recovered after bio mining -- process of using trommel machines to separate legacy waste into plastic, paper, cloth, sand etc-- consists of soil, stones and inert material. Disposal of inert in mines dangerous Atin Biswas, programme director, municipal solid waste, Centre for Science and Environment, who is part of an on-going study of landfill sites across the country, says preliminary findings indicate the presence of heavy metals and toxic chemicals in the inert material, suggesting it could be harmful to dump them in open mines in Delhi.