Reza Mahmud :
The dream of the capital’s two city corporations to keep zero waste by establishing recycle plants is yet a far cry due to lengthy process.
Landfills of the Dhaka South and the North City Corporations have been over dumped for years.
Consequently experts are worried saying the overflowed wastes are creating massive adverse environment througout the city.
When contacted, MA Matin, Vice President of Bangladesh Paribesh Andolon (BAPA) told The New Nation, “Without establishing recycling systems the environmental hazardous will be turned into unbearable situation soon.”
Meanwhile, BUET Professor of Environmental Engineering Division Dr. Md. Delwar Hossain told The New Nation, “Huge waste are producing stink everyday and polluting our air, ground and surface water and soil. On the other hand, land in our country is very limited. In this regard, the government should not allow the city corporations to expand landfills anymore. It should introduce recycle systems as soon as possible to avoid a disaster from garbage.”
Though the government has initiated a process to establish a plant in Aminbazar landfills to produce electricity from DNCC’s waste, it is yet to be finalised.
The government took a decision last year to sign an agreement with China Machinery Engineering Corporation (CMEC) to establish a plant for producing electricity from DNCC’s garbage.
A cabinet procurement committee meeting held on November12, 2020, passed the decision to construct the 25 years lasting plant with the Chinese CMEC for producing 42.5 MW power plant in Aminbazar landfill.
As per the cabinet procurement committee, Tk 15,325 crore project would be administered under the Bangladesh Power Development Board. Chinese CMEC company will establish it with its own risks investing Tk 3,400 crore, PDB sources said.
LGRD Minister Tajul Islam said, he is working to keep Dhaka city free of waste since taking the post.
“The dream will be fulfilled soon by starting the DNCC’s under processed waste to energy plant,” the minister said after the cabinet committee passed the proposal.
As per the proposal, DNCC will provide 30 aceres of land to the Chinese company for constructing the plant.
It will provide 3000 tons of waste every day. If it failed to provide waste bound to give compensation Tk 1000 for per ton garbage.
The DNCC collects around 2500 tons of garbage everyday which is about 80 percent of total produced waste of its area.
The rest 11 percent of waste are being dumped locally in open spaces, into canals, drains and here and there.
The LGRD Minister said after starting the plant, no garbage will be kept here and there for the needs of providing those in the plant.
But the experts are not optimistic about the implementation of the process.
Professor M Shamsul Alam, Energy Adviser to the Consumers Association of Bangladesh (CAB), said, “There were a number of issues needed to be studied before taking up power generation projects from waste.”
Earlier, an agreement was signed in 2013 with an Italian company to generate electricity from the waste of two city corporations in Dhaka. But it could not be implemented.
When contacted, Commodore M Saidur Rahman, Chief Waste Management Officer of DNCC told The New Nation, “The final MoU has not been signed yet with the CMEC. The feasibility tests are ongoing.”
He said that he did not know how more times it may be needed to sign a final agreement in this regard.
Besides, a proposal to establish waste recycling plant in DSCC were sent to the LGRD ministry six months ago, but the ministry is yet to send any reply on this regard.
“We sent a proposal to the ministry in September last year to establish a recycling plant in Matuail landfill for generating energy or make compost. But we yet to get any reply,” Air Commodore Md. Badrul Amin, Chief Waste Management officer told The New Nation.
In the long way of establishing recycling plant to get rid of environmental hazardous, the Executive Committee of National Economic Council (ECNEC) has passed a project of “Matuail Senetary Landfill and Extension with land development” on March 28, 2017 for DSCC, but did not realised.
The DSCC officials said that the tenure of the Matuail landfill expired in 2016. But still they were continually dumping garbage over the piled ones because there was no second option.
“If we do not establish recycling plant by next year, the city dwellers will face disaster of unbearable effect of anarchies of garbage,” one of them warned.
