NGT seeks fresh report on disposal of legacy waste at Bandhwari landfill

Tribune News Service

Kulwinder Sandhu

Gurugram, April 2

The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has asked the Municipal Corporations of Gurugram and Faridabad to submit a fresh status report on the processing of legacy waste at the Bandhwari landfill site on April 4. This comes as the tribunal took cognisance of the fact that the treatment of legacy waste was going on at a slow pace.

16.5 lakh MT trash processed

• As per the timeline that the Gurugram MC had submitted to the NGT, one lakh MT of legacy waste was to be processed in December last year, 3.6 lakh MT in January, 4 lakh MT in February, 4.6 lakh MT in March, 4 lakh MT in April, 3.3 lakh MT in May and 3 lakh MT in June.
• A total of 23.5 lakh MT of legacy waste was to be processed as per this timeline, out of which 16.5 lakh MT has been processed by the end of March this year.

The Bench of chairperson Prakash Shrivastava, judicial member Sudhir Agarwal and expert member Dr A Senthil Vel was recently hearing two petitions filed by local resident Poonam Yadav and environmentalist Vivek Kamboj. The petitioners had alleged that the daily waste was being dumped at Bandhwari in violation of the NGT’s September 2022 order, which directed the municipal corporations to stop dumping daily waste at the landfill.

The Bench observed, “We find that the progress made on waste processing by both municipal corporations and remediating legacy waste at Bandhwari has not been disclosed in their reports. This may be done in the next hearing.” The next hearing in this matter is on April 4.

Meanwhile, a senior official of the Gurugram MC revealed that six companies have been engaged at the Bandhwari landfill site to process the legacy waste, apart from the 2,000 tonnes of fresh waste that is being dumped at the site daily.

At least, 38 trommels were working at Bandhwari for the processing of legacy waste. The Gurugram MC had submitted an action plan to the National Green Tribunal a couple of months ago to process 23.5 lakh MT of legacy waste from December 2023 to June 2024.

As per the timeline that the Gurugram MC had submitted to NGT, one lakh MT of legacy waste was to be processed in December last year, 3.6 lakh MT in January this year, 4 lakh MT in February, 4.6 lakh MT in March, 4 lakh MT in April, 3.3 lakh MT in May and 3 lakh MT in June.

A total of 23.5 lakh MT of legacy waste was to be processed as per this timeline, out of which 16.5 lakh MT has been processed by the end of March this year.

The Additional Commissioner of Gurugram MC, Dr Balpreet Singh, who is personally monitoring the processing of legacy waste, recently gave instructions to speed up the execution of this work as per the timeline prepared by the civic body.

Meanwhile, MC officials said waste disposal produces refuse-derived fuel (RDF), compost and inert waste, which are disposed of by the private agencies at their own level. The RDF is sent to cement companies, while compost is used by farmers in their fields. Similarly inert waste is used for landfill.

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#Environment #Faridabad #Gurugram #National Green Tribunal NGT