As mandated by an order passed by the National Green Tribunal in 2019, the biomining of legacy waste began at Ghazipur, Bhalswa and Okhla landfills in October 2019, according to data submitted by the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) to the Centre.
How long will it take to flatten Delhi’s tottering garbage mountains? At the largest dumpsite in East Delhi’s Ghazipur, it could take decades to process just the legacy or old waste at the current pace. Not to mention that the landfill, which had the largest quantity of legacy or old waste when it was assessed in 2019, continues to receive fresh waste every day.
As mandated by an order passed by the National Green Tribunal in 2019, the biomining of legacy waste began at Ghazipur, Bhalswa and Okhla landfills in October 2019, according to data submitted by the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) to the Centre.
From October 2019-2020, the East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC), which handles the landfill at Ghazipur, bio-mined around 3 lakh tonnes of legacy waste out of the 140 lakh tonnes. By October 2021, it had processed 7.81 lakh tonnes, which means around 4.81 lakh tonnes was processed in the second year since biomining began. If an average of around 4 lakh tonnes is processed per year, the remaining 133 lakh tonnes of waste could take another 33 years to process.
All three landfills receive fresh waste daily. In 2021, fresh waste dumped at Ghazipur was more than the legacy waste processed that year.
The deadlines to remediate the landfills are, however, not a few decades away. Ghazipur is to achieve 100% remediation by December 2024, Bhalswa by December 2023, and Okhla by March 2023, going by action plans that the MCDs submitted to the NGT.
The fresh waste disposed of at the site while biomining of legacy waste is done turns it into a vicious cycle, said Richa Singh, programme officer, Waste Management Programme, Centre for Science and Environment. As of February this year, the total capacity for processing municipal waste in the city is 5,550 tonnes per day (49.9% of the 11,119 TPD generated). The processing capacity has not increased since at least 2016.
While remediating landfills, waste processing infrastructure needs to be strengthened so that no organic waste reaches the landfill site, said Suneel Pandey, Director of the Environment and Waste Management Division at The Energy and Resources Institute.
“This situation is particular to Delhi. When remediation of waste is being done, there is no alternative site for disposal of waste, and daily waste generation is accommodated at the same site. It would be up to the DDA and the Delhi government to allocate space for the corporations to handle fresh waste so that the remediation of landfills can be done. The remediation is slow, and will have to be done in mission mode,” he said.