Sunday, May 16, 2004
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Advts: Classifieds | Employment | New Delhi
By Bindu Shajan Perappadan
NEW DELHI, MAY 15. Water is precious and who would know it better than the residents of the Capital plagued as they are by constant water shortages? But despite the threat, the Delhiites are unwittingly turning water bodies into dump yards and in the process poisoning the water supply. Water bodies like wells, small lakes, marshlands and depressions are constantly being used to dump the garbage of the city because of the rapidly shrinking landfills in the Capital, say environmentalist. They explain that with the constant dumping, the water gets contaminated with heavy pollutants and which can be harmful for the human beings. About 8,000 tonnes of municipal solid waste is generated every day in Delhi, disposal of which is mainly in landfills and the 14 landfill sites that the city has have already been filled up. Three landfill sites at Ghazipur (East Delhi), Bhalswa (North), and Okhla (South East) are operational at present, though these will soon get filled. "The expected quantity of solid waste generated in Delhi would be about 12,750 tonnes per day by 2015. Due to growing pressure on land in Delhi and the projected increase in the quantum of solid wastes, the scope for disposal through landfill sites is limited. Too much land is being consumed accompanied by increasing danger of ground and surface water contamination. Water bodies in areas including Ghitorni, Nangal Dewat, Qutab Ki Boili, Mithapur and Rajpur Khurd are constantly being polluted and are examples of heavy contamination of water due to dumping and this is only the tip of the ice-berg,'' explains head of the non-government organisation Tapas, Vinod Kumar Jain, who has compiled a report of the condition of ground water contamination due to dumping. Ground water sources indicate high total dissolved solids concentration. Solid waste samples from the surface and various depths of the landfills have been found to contain high levels of faecal coli forms and faecal streptococci. Explaining how rampant the `poisoning' is, environmentalist Sanjay K. Gupta of Toxics Link says: "The ground water around the Bhalswa water body is so bad that the communities living there have to depend on tankers for clean drinking water. It is a classic example of what happens to ground water in case dumping happens without control. So contaminated is the water that it has changed to brown colour.'' "For saving our water, good disposal technologies will have to be adopted on a large-scale, including aerobic composting, vermiculture, pelletisation and incineration. The private sector needs to be accorded a greater role. In recent times, the spotlight has also been on the problem of managing plastic wastes and the increasing hazards posed to human health from bio-medical wastes,'' explains Mr. Jain.
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