Capital to get permanent landfill site next year

Islamabad: Metropolitan Corporation of Islamabad (MCI) is moving forward briskly with its plan of developing the first-ever permanent dumping site for the Federal capital generating tonnes of garbage daily.

The capital city, despite being the face of country still lacks a permanent landfill site to scientifically dump trash for ensuring clean and green environment. For the last four decades, the civic agency 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. Recently, the private consultant, hired by the MCI, has selected a location near Sangjani to setup the facility on permanent basis due to its minimum hauling distance, suitable topography, distant from aircraft route for flight safety and socio-environmental factors, a senior official in MCI Sanitation Directorate told this agency.

The Environmental Protection Agency Pakistan (EPA), he said would conduct a public hearing of the landfill site project this week and visit the site before giving the final approval.

The process might take a few weeks, he added. The EPA, he said, would evaluate the water table of the site to ensure that the underground water of the area would not be polluted by dumping of around 700-800 metric tons of garbage and municipal solid waste per day. After obtaining the No-Objection Certificate from the EPA, he said the MCI would hire another consultant to carry out the site’s Designing and Supervision report or Engineering Procurement and Construction (EPC). He said the Ministry of Climate Change had proposed to conduct the EPC as it would take less time compared to Designing and Supervision study.

"The entire process for materializing the landfill site project will take a year," he maintained. To a query, the official said the land near Sangjani spread over 70 acres and the department had formally requested to the Capital Development Authority (CDA) for acquiring the said land from the Forest Department on lease.

However, a site in the residential area of I-12 sector, set up by the CDA as a temporary place to dump total generated trash of Islamabad, has been spreading diseases in the area. The residents of I-12 sector are bearing the brunt of this temporary move as the site is today overflowing with trash. As a result, its residents are complaining of a host of problems, including a constant nauseating smell emanating from it.

Khalid Satti from Sector I-12 said all the waste of the federal capital was being dumped in a residential area that spread infectious diseases in the locality. Satti said he had lodged several complaints at different platforms but to no avail, urging the authorities concerned to shift the sites in the outskirts of Islamabad at the earliest.