Time bomb: Garbage RDX

Tonnes of toxic garbage pollute our groundwater and air, but turning India into a zero garbage zone is not impossible. It all starts at the source: the dustbin in your 'home sweet home'

Garima Srivastava Delhi   

Each household in a metro like Delhi produces a certain amount of waste every day. This is either taken away by the municipal employees, the 'garbage collector' or thrown in the garbage bins. However, what we consider as the end of domestic garbage is the beginning of someone else's plight.

The garbage produced from our households is taken to landfill sites situated at the outskirts of the cities. Delhi itself produces 8,000 metric tonnes of garbage every day. According to the National Capital Region Planning Board (NCRPB), this might shoot up to 15,000 metric tonnes by 2021. 

Currently, the garbage collected by the Delhi Municipal Corporation (DMC) is taken to the three landfill sites: Okhla in south Delhi, Gazipur in east Delhi and Jehangirpuri in north Delhi. The government is planning to create four new landfill sites around Delhi.

Employees deployed at the Jehangirpuri site told Hardnews: “On an average 450 to 500 trucks filled with garbage arrive every day. One truck contains four tonnes of garbage. The waste that comes here is non-segregated.” Similar is the condition of other landfill sites. An employee at the Gazipur landfill site says, “Sometimes, the garbage also contains corpses of animals that come from the nearby chicken market.”

So what happens to the life of those who have been living this area since years? “Since 1994, our life has become an eternal hell due to this garbage dump. The groundwater of this area is contaminated. We get yellowish, salted water that stinks. Due to the excess traffic of garbage trucks, air pollution is on the rise. Our children are getting prone to asthma and other respiratory diseases, and women are getting skin allergies since for most of their domestic work they have to use this contaminated water. This place has also become a hub for vultures, crows, dogs, pigs and scavengers, which makes it risky to let kids go out in the open and play,” complains Saquil Ahmed, whose house shares the boundary of the Gazipur landfill site.

Monsoon arrives as a nightmare. “During the rains we can't even think of stepping out from our homes as the garbage dumped at these sites floats right up to our doorsteps with the filthy water. It stinks and spreads. And this goes on day after day until the time the rains stop. One day there will be an epidemic. Although this huge 'mountain of waste' is set on fire, this creates more problems. The fumes stay in the air and spread for more than two weeks. Flies, mosquitoes, cockroaches and rats make our life miserable. We are fed up,” says frustrated Rajeev Maggo, who has a shop near the Gazipur landfill site. 

This is a core problem across cities and towns in India. For instance, Urali Devachi, a village about 25 km from Pune, the emerging IT hub of the country, has turned into a daily nuisance. Over 1,250 tonnes of garbage, including plastic waste, is dumped everyday at the five-acre dumping site close to the village. Many villagers have been forced to abandon farming because the fields are strewn with polythene bags and waste material the winds bring from the garbage dump. Groundwater has been contaminated. Dengue, malaria, diarrhoea are common ailments. Germs and toxic elements from the garbage leak into the groundwater. There is no clean water to drink. This contaminated water poses a major risk to the cattle as well.