Poor solid waste handling stinks all the way

The city churns out as much as 900 metric tonnes of garbage every day. It comes as no surprise that the municipal corporation has not lived up to the rules stated under the Municipal Corporation Solid Waste Management and Handling Rules, 2000, notified by the Ministry of Environment.

While most of the city areas do not even have garbage containers for collection of domestic waste, leaving the garbage collection in private hands, the transportation of garbage is also done in the most unhealthy way as open trucks carry filth to landfill sites while spilling it on the roads all along the way. This is against the rule that clearly states that the garbage has to be carried in covered vehicles and garbage should not be visible to the public.

There are nearly 68 vehicles used by MC for garbage transportation, and many of them are in a bad shape, and not to mention, without cover.

As for collection of garbage from houses, in areas where garbage is picked up in door-to-door collection, the workers have been charging heavily. However, Section 44 C of the Punjab Municipal Corporation Act, 1976, states it as an obligation of the MC to scavenge, remove and dispose filth, rubbish, and other obnoxious or polluted matter.

According to the MC figures, there are 269 overall sites in the city including nine open dumping sites 260 containerised sites. Around 50 per cent of them are condemned containers that have never been replaced. Therefore, at most of these collection points where bins are placed, garbage is mostly scattered all around the bins.

Notably, there are hardly any containers or 8216;bins8217; in most areas of the city, be they posh localities like Sarabha Nagar or the congested and old areas of the city. MC too admits that the 8216;City Development Plan8217; that 8216;Solid Waste arising out of human activity is one of the major environmental problems causing extensive pollution and threat to human health8217;.

A city resident, on the condition of anonymity, makes scathing remarks for the LMC saying that it should adopt some stern measures to deal with this problem before it becomes a potential health hazard and MC offices are forced to be used as dumping sites. Notably, MC has also failed to meet all the deadlines to set up processing and disposal facility.

The two landfill sites 8211; at Jainpur village on Hambran Road and at Jamalpur, opposite new jail on the Tajpur Road 8211; are also posing potential health hazards to the nearby residents. There are no walls on the peripheries, as per the rules, and the garbage is also not segregated into bio-degradable and non-degradable.

LMC Commissioner GS Ghuman who has recently taken charge says that two things that are high on his agenda are condition of the roads and garbage disposal. 8220;I have received some 30 calls on a single day about this problem and that speaks volumes about the urgency to tackle it.

I have found that there are not sufficient containers for garbage collection in the city so first thing I have done is that I have invited tenders for buying 125 new bins,8221; he says.

He maintains that for a better and economical solution to the problem, the MC is mulling to give it on BOT Build-Operate-Transfer basis to a private contractor. 8220;We are soon going to hold a meeting with an organisation which has offered to undertake this job,8221; he says.

The figures
Domestic waste and open waste accounts for 56.31 per cent of the total MSW.
Commercial waste from hotels, restaurants, shops, and other establishments, accounts for 23.95 per cent of MSW.
Industrial waste accounts for 19.74 per cent of MSW.