5/10/2014 Delhi under risk of getting buried under own debris: India Today

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The biggest problem Delhi is facing is the unavailability of an appropriate site where debris can be dumped.
Delhi under risk of getting buried under
own debris
SHIBAJI ROYCHOUDHURY | New Delhi, May 10, 2014 | 06:52
The biggest problem Delhi is facing is the unavailability of an appropriate site where debris can be dumped.
The National Capital is facing the risk of getting buried under its own debris. Around 4,000 tonnes of
construction waste is generated in Delhi every day, which is being dumped into the already polluted Yamuna
and the protected Ridge area, choking them further.
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And this continues despite an order by the National Green Tribunal on September 24 last year to both the
Delhi and Noida police along with other authorities to prevent dumping of the construction waste into the
Yamuna. While the Delhi ridge forests are considered the lungs of the Capital, the Yamuna accounts for
more than 70 per cent of Delhi's water needs.
"Dumping the construction and demolition (C&D) waste into the water bodies leads to contamination of the
water supply. It also leads to environmental degradation and makes rivers susceptible to floods. Moreover,
there is no scientific method followed at the disposal sites, where waste is disposed without any processing,"
Executive Director of CSE, Anumita Roychowdhury told Mail Today.
According to sources, several attempts to clean up the Yamuna turned unsuccessful largely because of the
construction debris. The biggest problem is the unavailability of an appropriate site in the Capital where
such large amount of debris can be dumped. The problem is compounded due to the absence of concrete
provisions for disposal or recycling of the construction waste. At present, Delhi's only construction waste
cycling plant at Burari recycles 500 tonnes of debris per day.
As per the initial estimates made by the civic agencies, 37,000 cubic metre of solid waste needs to be
removed from the eastern Yamuna bank (around the Yamuna Bank Metro station) while 53,000 cubic metre
of malwa (construction waste) is lying in the western bank between Nizamuddin bridge and Batla House.
"This large quantity of construction waste is a big hurdle as Delhi already has overflowing landfill sites. The
possibility of any neighbouring state willing to share the load is quite unlikely," a senior official of the East
Delhi Municipal Corporation said.
One of the ways to counter this menace is recycling of the waste generated by the construction industry,
Roychowdhury hury asserted. "We should learn from how countries abroad are scientifically recycling these
wastes and using them for construction of new buildings, roads etc. Singapore recycles 98 per cent of its
C&D waste. The effective recycling rate in South Korea is 36 per cent, with a target of increasing this to 45
per cent by 2016," she said.
A recent CSE report said that a review of global best practices by the Ministry of Environment & Forests
(MoEF) appointed committee mentioned that in Scotland, about 63 per cent of the waste was recycled in
2000. Denmark and the Netherlands have an aggressive strategy to reuse C&D waste. The Netherlands has
5/10/2014 Delhi under risk of getting buried under own debris: India Today
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2000. Denmark and the Netherlands have an aggressive strategy to reuse C&D waste. The Netherlands has
found that 80 per cent of its C&D waste is bricks and concrete that can be recycled to minimise pressure on
land. In Japan, way back in 2000, about 95 per cent of waste concrete was crushed and reused as roadbed
and backfilling material, while 98 per cent of asphalt and concrete and 35 per cent of sludge was recycled.
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