A landfill in disarray

With no segregation and recycling facility, Aminbazar landfill has been struggling to manage daily collection of more than 3,000 tonnes of solid waste.

The landfill, located beside the Dhaka-Aricha highway and around 30km off Zero Point in the capital, is also facing severe shortage of manpower and has only one operational waste management vehicle of its own.

The continuous dumping at the landfill has formed a mountain of garbage, which towers approximately 60 feet above the road.

The Daily Star got the insight of the hard-pressed waste management scenario during a recent visit.

Established with Japanese assistance in 2006, the site was planned as a sanitary landfill. A very few things, however, were done according to the design. The leachate collection pond and treatment plant were non-functional till 2018, while the recycling plant still exists only on paper. There is no heavy equipment to give the daily soil covering.

As there is no manpower for waste segregation and recycling, the landfill authorities allow in hundreds of waste pickers, who collect recyclable materials from the dumped garbage.

These extremely poor people, many of whom are women and children, come from nearby villages and stay at the landfill from 8:00am to 6:00pm every day.

They segregate reusable plastics, glass and metal objects from knee-to-waist-deep heaps of waste without wearing any gloves, masks or any other type of safety gear, exposing themselves to different kinds of skin and respiratory diseases.

Shah Alam, a waste picker who works there along with his wife and two children, said they often get injured by sharp materials such as glasses and metal objects.

"Most of us are also suffering from skin diseases and breathing problems. But we are poor people and have no other means of income. If we don't collect these, we will have to starve. We rely on Allah for our health," he told The Daily Star at the landfill.

The landfill authorities also cannot give daily soil cover over the garbage due to the shortage of heavy equipment. As a result, unbearable stench emanating from the site can be felt from miles away.

SHORTAGE OF MANPOWER, EQUIPMENT

Waste generated from areas of the Dhaka North City Corporation are dumped at the Aminbazar landfill, established on 52 acres of wetland and in operation since 2007.

According to DNCC officials, the landfill is running with less than 20 percent of the required staff.

At present, there are only 19 people to manage over 3,000 tonnes of solid waste generated daily. These staffers are a motley collection of helpers, technicians and operators of non-operational equipment.

The three crucial posts of waste management supervisors are vacant. There are no mechanical or civil engineers or waste management professionals at the site.

"We have to continue our operations round the clock with whatever resources we have. I have to engage all the available workers in all kinds of tasks. For instance, technicians often act as waste management inspectors," Shahin Sadat Siddiqui, a sub-assistant engineer who in charge of supervising the operation, told The Daily Star.

Officials said the landfill got a boost after (late) Annisul Huq became the DNCC mayor in 2015. It was at that time when heavy equipment such as bulldozers, dump trucks, excavators and roller compactors were purchased.

The leachate treatment plant was repaired, which is now discharging refined liquid waste into a nearby river. According to the recent test reports done by Buet authorities, pH, SSW, BOD and COD values of these treated liquid are within the tolerance level.

However, the brief leap towards progress was very little compared to the need of this massive dumping site.

In the meantime, the consequence of such an acute shortage of manpower can be seen everywhere at the landfill.

According to a High Court injunction, waste can be transported to the landfill only from 10:00pm to 6:00am. But garbage is dumped at the landfill all day long.

Heaps of waste dumped under the nearby Aminbazar bridge and on two sides of the Dhaka-Aricha highway were also found during the visit.

"Due to the shortage of manpower, we cannot station an adequate number of staffers at night. This is why we are permitting daytime dumping," said Shahin.

He, however, refuted an allegation that DNCC trucks dump waste outside the landfill.

Shahin said they allowed local waste pickers in as they lack the manpower to segregate and recycle garbage on their own.

Asked about the waste pickers' safety, he said, "We don't have any budget for that [ensuring the safety gear]. But we welcome any charitable organisations if they want to help."

The landfill is also having chronic equipment shortage.

There are six excavators, eight chain dozers, two wheel dozers and one payloader at the landfill. Only one payloader has recently been repaired. Rest of these valuable equipment are damaged and non-functional despite the fact that most of those were purchased four to five years ago.

These equipment are essential for moving garbage from unloading sites to the landfill site, compacting the garbage and giving soil-covering over the garbage.

Now the authorities are outsourcing from the private sector to run the landfill.

It spent more than Tk 10 crore for outsourcing and maintaining the equipment and an additional Tk 4.75 crore for fuel in the last fiscal year, according to DNCC records.

"Due to the massive amount of collected waste and resource constraints, we have to run these equipment day and night, which severely reduce their longevity," said the landfill in-charge.

Amid the shortage of resources and space constraint, DNCC has decided to acquire further 80 acres of land to expand the site as its capacity will exhaust this year, said SM Shafiqur Rahman, additional chief waste management officer of DNCC.

Besides, the DNCC has recently signed an agreement with China Machinery Engineering Corporation to set up a 42.5MW power plant at the landfill, which will produce electricity by incinerating the waste at high temperature.

"After the establishment of the power plant, much of the existing problems will be solved as most of the waste will be incinerated at the power plant. It will increase the landfill's longevity," said Shafiqur.

NOT A SANITARY LANDFILL

Experts said the Aminbazar dumping site was still far away from being a sanitary landfill and expanding it further under the current conditions would not be a sustainable solution.

"How can you call it a sanitary site when they are dumping all the garbage into a wetland? Construction of such a site in the flood flow zone is a complete violation of the Bangladesh Environment Conservation Act, 1995," said Syeda Rizwana Hasan, chief executive of Bangladesh Environment Lawyers' Association (Bela).

"Expansion of this landfill will be disastrous for the environment and the locals," she added.

Bela had filed a writ petition with the HC, seeking a rule against the construction of a landfill in the flood flow zone. On February 28, 2010, the court ordered the then Dhaka City Corporation to stop dumping garbage at the landfill.

However, on March 14 that year, the Supreme Court stayed the HC order.

Talking to this newspaper, Buet Prof Tanvir Ahmed, meanwhile, said, "The amount of waste is so huge that a thin layer of occasional soil covering or only one leachate treatment plant can do little to prevent pollution. Therefore, it is little more than an open dumping ground."

Segregation of waste from primary sources can shed the burden of waste at landfills up to 30 percent, he said, adding that expansion of the landfill was never a sustainable solution.

The experts also argued about energy plants as a solution.

"We are hearing about waste-to-energy plants for a very long time. It is extremely expensive and I hardly believe it will be feasible for our country. Besides, burning plastics will produce toxic gases and carcinogenic compounds, which will endanger the public health," said Syeda Rizwana Hasan.

Prof Tanvir said, "A large part of our waste is of moist nature such as waste that comes from the kitchen and kitchen markets. Production of electricity by burning these will be extremely difficult."

But SM Shafiqur Rahman said, "If you think about our resources and the amount of waste we are handling, we are giving the best possible services. We are in the process of recruiting more manpower and using modern technologies.

"Environmentalists may not agree with us in all terms, but where shall we dump such a massive amount of waste? Apart from criticising us, they should also come up with feasible solutions."