Amid plan to shrink legacy waste, Deonar dump ‘grapples with' energy and bio-CNG projects
Mumbai: Even as the
BMC
floated a tender to clear up 185 lakh metric tonne of legacy waste at the
Deonar landfill
, two other major projects are underway at the same site spread across 311 acres. These are a
waste-to-energy
(WTE) plant set to process 600 MT daily and generate 7MW of electricity, and a bio-CNG plant designed for 1,000MT of waste.
Experts caution the scale and overlap of these projects present serious execution challenges. Rajkumar Sharma, chairman of Chembur-based advanced locality management and networking action committee (ALMANAC), who is also on a six-member court-appointed committee to monitor and improve conditions at the Deonar dumping ground, said next month a committee meeting is planned where he will raise the issue.
"How do they plan to distinguish between various projects on the landfill—whether it's the recent bioremediation, waste-to-energy (WTE) or
bio-CNG projects
? Even after bioremediation is complete, the site will remain toxic for years due to the sheer volume of legacy waste.
We continue to see fires erupt at the dump during summers because of the methane trapped underneath," Sharma said.
Deonar landfill has been operational since 1927. On an average, the height of municipal solid waste at the dumping ground is 20 metre, and at some spots like near Rafiq Nagar it goes up to 40 metre too.
The bioremediation tender mandates the contractor to clear 23,000 metric tonne of legacy waste every day—a target over three times Mumbai's daily waste generation of around 8,000 metric tonne.
Activist Rishi Agarwal, though, said for the authorities, the first focus should be on reducing the incoming mixed waste at dump sites. "On one hand they are proposing to clear up legacy waste and on the other mixed waste continues to be brought in," said Agarwal, adding Rs 2368 crore is a lot of valuable public money and can be used for responsible waste measures to reduce the need for dumping grounds.
While some say the targets are achievable if the BMC partners with the right technical experts, past delays aren't encouraging.
Birju Mundra, a Mulund resident who through his company Vini-Agro Pvt Ltd in 2004 worked towards treating 61,229 tonne of waste in Gorai successfully, said, "We brought the mountain of waste to ground level through bioremediation. If the BMC ropes in the right partners, this legacy waste can be cleared," he said. However, if that doesn't happen, he said, it could see the fate like that of the Mulund dumping ground, which up to now has only 25 acres out of 59 acres reclaimed over seven years since the bioremediation work was initiated.
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