When you travel through the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border, a pungent sight will arouse your senses. The sight should be counted amongst the top wonders of the world, because of its deserved humongous-ness. It is India’s tallest garbage mountain that exists in New Delhi, growing larger every single year. The Hindustan Times even went ahead to describe it as the world’s most polluted capital and its largest symbol of decline in waste management.
Indians are known for keeping their homes clean. But, who will clean what’s outside? Public urination, overflowing trash cans and no trash cans; this is what we are famous for.
WHAT IS THE GHAZIPUR LANDFILL ?
Ghazipur was opened in 1984 and reached its capacity in 2002 when it should have been closed. But, because of a failing waste management system, all waste gets dumped here every day. Eagles, vultures and other birds of prey fly around the tall Ghazipur landfill on the eastern part of New Delhi, stray dogs and cows roam at will over the large area of smelly remains. This might also be because of the slaughterhouse right next to it. Taking up the area of more than 40 football pitches, Ghazipur keeps rising by nearly 10 metres a year with no end in sight to its foul growth. According to East Delhi’s superintendent engineer Arun Kumar, it is already more than 65 metres (about 213 feet) high.
There is no other site to dump the waste collected from around 4.5 million people living in East Delhi. Around 700 trucks dump 3000 metric tonnes of garbage everyday at this landfill. Made up of combustible substances, garbage and sewage dump, it has made the life of the people residing nearby terrible. This landfill affects the health of people in the villages beside the landfill.
The Ghazipur landfill was a prominent source of income for the waste pickers living in the nearby neighbourhood. When it was announced that the landfill was going to be closed, it left all the waste pickers without any money. There is a class differentiation which can be seen in this context. Most people who live near the landfill are sweepers, cleaners and domestic helpers. People with access to healthcare for the consequences of inhaling these gases live far away from these landfills and people with a lack of resources live near it.
HOW DOES THE LANDFILL AFFECT PEOPLE ?
1. It’s a landfill and fires get sparked by methane gas coming from the dump, regularly break out and take days to extinguish. This affects the quality of life and health of people living around the landfill. A recent study said the dump was a health risk for people living within five kilometres, including for cancer. A government survey conducted between 2013 and 2017 reported that Delhi saw 981 deaths from acute respiratory infection while more than 1.7 million residents suffered from infections.
2. Shambhavi Shukla, senior researcher at the Center for Science and Environment in New Delhi, said methane belching from the garbage can become even more deadly when mixed with the atmosphere. Leachate, a black toxic liquid, oozes from the dump into a local canal.
3. Another way in which this has impacted the lives of people is by contaminating the groundwater. Due to the absence of resources and good infrastructure, a lot of people drink groundwater, but the contamination of toxic chemical compounds from the landfill causes the creation of leachate, a substance that amalgamates with groundwater. This makes the water unhealthy for consumption and causes serious illnesses like Cholera, Polio, Typhoid etc.
WHAT IS THE SOLUTION ?
There is no permanent solution to this problem. It isn’t like a magical solution will come up in the future. The only solution is consistency and effort. Managing your waste, recycling it and lessening your usage of harmful substances is the adequate solution. Indian cities are among the world’s largest garbage producers, generating 62 million tonnes of waste annually. By 2030, that could rise to 165 million tonnes, according to government figures. The state authorities have started the process to convert it into a park. The compression of such waste has begun and the progress can be seen nowadays. But, there’s still a long way to go.
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Sources:
https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/garbage-mountain-at-delhi-s-ghazipur-landfill-to-rise-high er-than-taj-mahal-by-2020/story-RC0kwZdUmdHHfDs3rJGngI.html
https://feminisminindia.com/2021/07/12/ghazipur-landfill-a-mountain-of-waste-almost-the-height-of-the -qutub-minar/
Written by, Aamna Siddiqui
