Ggm: 'Bandhwari landfill may catch fire due to high methane emissions'

gurugram: Fire at Bhalswa landfill site in Delhi has raised concerns for a similar kind of incident occurring at Bandhwari landfill site in Gurugram. Nestled in 30 acres area of the Aravallis, hundreds of trucks daily dump garbage from not only Gurugram but also Faridabad at this site.

Inability of the public administration and private contractors to segregate the dry and wet waste often increases the risk of large amounts of methane gas emanating from the garbage which in turn can cause fire. Set up in 2008, what has added to concerns is the amount of waste at Bandhwari landfill site increasing from 25 lakh tonnes to 33 lakh tonnes over the years. Moreover, large amounts of untreated waste deposited has also resulted in an increase in height of waste from 36 meters to 40 meters.

Last year in July, a fire also broke out at Bandhwari landfill site that further added to the concerns of officials, green activists and nearby residents who are living around the area. It took more than five days to douse the fire. Besides this, there is also a huge challenge of overflow of leachate which contaminates and poisons the groundwater of nearby areas.

To improve the situation at Bandhwari landfill site, the Haryana government has now begun the process of setting up of waste-to-energy plants. This decision has been implemented despite green activists as well as the local population raising objections. The district administration has been trying to find an alternate site to Bandhwari landfill site to dump the garbage but it has been unsuccessful so far. Meanwhile, the district administration along with the private contractor in charge of recycling waste at Bandhwari have set up certain centres in the city for segregation of dry and wet waste.