Kolkata wastelands: At only functional dump, few safety steps

Agencies responsible: City’s waste is managed jointly by the Solid Waste Management (SWM) department of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) and private contractors.

At Dhapa

The Dhapa landfill, which has been functioning since the 1980s, is spread across 50 hectares — Garden Reach is much smaller at 8 hectares. The landfill has a functional compost plant that can process 500 metric tonnes of waste a day.

Read: Wastelands of India – Here’s how metros manage their trash

Though Debabrata Majumdar, member, Mayor in Council MMIC (conservancy), who is incharge of the landfills, claimed the Dhapa dump followed all safety norms and that “ground workers are equipped with gloves to avoid direct contact with solid waste and masks to avoid inhaling of harmful gases”, the reality at the site is very different.

The dumping yard can be accessed from both its western and eastern ends. On the western side is the official entry gate. The approach road to the landfill here is wide, clean and well maintained. The homes in the nearby Bantala locality are least 100 feet away. But the eastern side near the EM Bypass offers a very different view. Parts of the boundary wall are broken and there are homes barely 10 feet from the dump. When asked about people living so close to the dump, Majumdar said, “That can’t be helped because the habitat was there long before the law was framed.”

At the dumpyard, none of the workers and ragpickers wears gas masks or gloves. Fifteen-year-old Sukhen Mondal, a student of Class IX, says this has been his home since birth. This is the only life he has known and he won’t have it any other way. “Stink? We don’t feel anything. There are two tube wells right next to the landfill where we take bath and draw drinking water. I have never heard of anyone dying because of all this,” he says.

Nearby, as a truck tips garbage, women sit sorting out refuse, children play barefoot among pigs and a few men sit with their lunch boxes open.