The BJP chief of Delhi Manoj Tiwari inaugurated a trommelling machine set up by the North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) on 21 October 2019 at Bhalswa landfill. This is a major step towards cleaning the ‘legacy waste’ at the site. The newly inaugurated machine aims to segregate 3,000 metric tonnes of waste on a daily basis.
As per previous data waste produced in New Delhi measures up to 10,000 MT of garbage which is eventually dumped in the waste mountains located at Ghazipur, Bhalswa, and Okhla. These wastelands were which were commissioned in 1984, 1994 and 1996 respectively and have all long exhausted their technical lifespan. The Bhlswa landfill waste site is the second biggest dump yard in the national capital after Ghazipur landfill in East Delhi.
A detailed project report (DPR) on Bhalswa as prepared by a Baroda-based company states that said the landfill has about 60% ‘inert waste’ (construction & demolition debris); 30% waste that has not decomposed (synthetic clothes and rubber items such as tyres and footwear), and 5% metal, glass and hazardous waste such as sanitary napkins.
On the inauguration of the tromelling machines, Tiwari attacked the Aam Aaadmi Party (AAP) government and the present Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. He alleged that the present government at the national capital is not concerned about the mountains of garbage in the city.
He said that Arvind Kejriwal is not concerned about the widespread local pollutants in New Delhi and has rather shown concerns about the stubble that is being burnt in the neighboring states of Punjab and Haryana. He also stated that while recently flying over these states, he did not come across a single instance of stubble burning, as claimed by AAP.
‘Very Poor’ AQI in New Delhi due to stubble burning in Punjab and Haryana:
After the air quality index (AQI) of New Delhi was listed as ‘very poor’, the Delhi government had released satellite images from NASA which clearly showed the stubble burning incidents in Haryana and Punjab. The government had blamed a rise in such incidents of stubble burning as the reason for the wearying AQI. The incidents of stubble burning have seen a spike of about 40% in the neighboring states of Delhi- Punjab, and Haryana, over the last one month.
Research by NASA shows that as per the satellite data by Council on Energy, Environment, and Water (CEEW), up to 2,662 open fires were recorded in the states of Haryana and Punjab in the given duration of September 20 to October 15. Last year, in 2018, a total of some 1,906 fires were detected during the same time-span.
Right after the announcement of the ‘very poor’ AQI in New Delhi, the government announced a ban on the use of electric generators that use diesel, petrol, and kerosene of all capacities, except those which are used for ‘essential services’. Essential services would usually mean medical purposes, use in elevators and escalators, railway and metro services, and other services at the airport and inter-state bus terminus.
Tromelling Machines to clear the mountains of garbage in Phase One:
BJP Delhi Chief Tiwari also stated that a total of 15 machines will work and is aimed towards finishing the mountains of garbage in the city. On inauguration, the party remarked:
“Such machines are being procured for South Delhi and East Delhi Municipal Corporations also. It is regrettable that the Delhi Government has not contributed anything in this scheme,”
The initiative of installing the trommel machines is aiming to install such machines at the Bhaslwa landfill site for bio-mining and bio-remediation. At the inaugural event held at the site, along with the BJP Delhi chief Manoj Tiwari, North-West Delhi MP Hans Raj Hans, leader of Opposition Vijender Gupta, MCD standing committee chairman Jai Prakash, NDMC mayor Avtar Singh and several others were present. They marked the starting of the process of biomining the infamous garbage hills of the Capital.
While taking a toll on Arvind Kejriwal and the ruling AAP party, he said that this concern with the legacy is such that Kejriwal should have contacted the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) over. He congratulated the New Delhi Municipal Corporation [NDMC] to have made the project a reality even after a gripping lack of funds. This initiative, as per his statement, would help eliminate the rid of the Bhalswa landfill sites within one and a half years.
The recent is the first phase of the project as given by the MCD. Nine such machines, each with a capacity of 300 tonnes of waste disposal will function in the legacy first phase. It is being anticipated that the number of machines is expected to go up to 15 in the coming days.
The trammel machines are equipped with segregating the waste into three categories which can be then further used in different ways- stones, cloth, plastic, sand, and glass. As per the plan, the cloth and plastic will be sent to a different plan to be burnt and disposed of in an eco-friendly legacy manner. The sand can be used anywhere in the landfills and similarly, the stone waste will also be used. This process is known as bio-mining.
He also assured that if the BJP is voted to power in the next elections in the national capital, it would give five times more relief to electricity and water consumers as compared to the present schemes of the AAP government.
Once earlier, the NDMC had floated a tender for the remediation of the Bhalswa landfill. They proposed the ‘green capping’ or ‘dry bombing of garbage’ model, as adopted by the South Delhi Municipal Corporation [SDMC]. The model had worked well legacy in South Delhi and had resulted in reducing the Okhla landfill from 58 metres to 38 metres in eight months, since it began in June 2018.
Green Capping method essentially involves stopping dumping of fresh carbage, and compressing the already existing garbage with heavy machines and cutting slopes at a legacy stable angle of 22 degrees. This is done so as to prevent the garbage from collapsing at the time of rain or earthquake, as it once happened before in the Ghazipur landfill in 2017. The unfortunate event had resulted in the death of two.