Kolkata: In a significant step towards sustainable waste management, Kolkata Mayor Firhad Hakim on Tuesday inaugurated a state-of-the-art waste processing complex at the Dhapa landfill site, comprising a 100-tonne-per-day (TPD) material recovery facility, a 10 TPD plastic waste processing plant, and a 1 TPD thermocol processing unit.
The initiative is part of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation’s (KMC) broader strategy to transform waste into a major source of revenue and reduce the longstanding environmental burden posed by the Dhapa dumping ground.
“In the next 20 years, about 40% of KMC’s revenues will come from processing waste,” said Mayor Hakim at the inauguration event. “Mining and processing waste is now one of the prime objectives of the civic body as we work to reduce the garbage mountain at Dhapa.”
According to the Mayor, of the approximately 4,000 tonnes of solid waste dumped at Dhapa every day, around 1,500 tonnes are currently being recycled. Efforts are underway to scale up recycling capacity to handle the entire daily volume, he added. The Dhapa landfill, located along the Eastern Metropolitan Bypass, receives waste not only from Kolkata but also from adjoining municipal areas such as Bidhannagar, Nabadiganta Industrial Township and Panihati Municipality.
Environmental concerns about the site have been mounting. Kalyan Rudra, chairman of the West Bengal Pollution Control Board, recently emphasised the urgency of processing the accumulated waste to avoid risks like land subsidence. “The faster we process the waste at Dhapa, the lower the chances of incidents like the recent Howrah landfill collapse,” Rudra said, identifying biomining as a key solution to the problem.
KMC officials confirmed that tenders have been issued to appoint a new agency to resume biomining operations at Dhapa, aiming for a long-term cleanup and recovery of land occupied by decades of unprocessed waste.