Capital still lacks permanent garbage landfill site

Islamabad: In an age of advanced technologies to recycle garbage and generate energy, the federal capital still lacks a permanent landfill site to scientifically dump trash for ensuring clean and green environment.

For the last four decades, the civic agency had proposed several areas including Kuri landfill to permanently dump the garbage in the city, but the waste is still being dumped in a residential area of I-12 sector.

Last year, the Metropolitan Corporation Islamabad (MCI) had selected a location near Sangjani to set up the facility on permanent basis due to its suitable topography, but it could not even initiate the construction work on the site due to official hiccups.

The MCI had forwarded the tender to the competent authorities for hiring eight private consultants to formulate Environment Assessment Impact (EAI) report on the Sangjani but was not processed due to high cost, an official source in the corporation told APP.

The corporation, he said would again open technical and financial bids for the purpose and hoped that the MCI would be able to float the tender after completing the formal process. After hiring experts, he said the consultants would have to prepare the EAI report within three months in order to get the approval of Pakistan Environmental Protection Agency.

The official said the consultants would carry out geo-tagging and drilling to evaluate the water table of the site. It would also be ensured that the under ground water of the area was not polluted by dumping of around 750-800 metric tons of garbage and municipal solid waste per day. He hoped that the construction work on the facility may be initiated by the end of this year.

To a query, the official said the land near Sangjani, spreading over 70 acres, was selected due to its minimum hauling distance, suitable topography, distant from aircraft route for flight safety and socio-environmental factors. To another question, he said the idea of waste-to-energy plant could not be materialized as the solid waste of Islamabad contained moisture. However, he said the department was considering other options to recycle the total generated trash.

About the Sector I-12 residents facing problems due to nauseating smell emitting from the overflowing landfill site of the area, the official said they had cleared all the land, especially along the IJP road. He claimed that it had buried around over 1,260,000 tons of garbage at temporary landfill site.