NMC to start reclaiming Bhandewadi land but without waste from June
   Date :25-Apr-2019

 
 
By Vikas Vaidya:
 
 
People living around Bhandewadi will have a reason to smile as Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) will start reclaiming its land sans solid waste, through bio-mining from June. Presently 10 lakh MT garbage at Bhandewadi is awaiting its disposal for the last over six years. Hanjer Bio-tech discontinued the work of garbage disposal since then it remained as it was. When the concept of dumping yard came, the volume of garbage was less and the capacity of disposing off it through processing in incinerator was around 800 ton. It was more than the actual collection. Later on, the garbage collection reached to 1100 ton per day. But the capacity of incinerator remained the same--800 ton.
 
It means that everyday 200 ton garbage got dumped without being processed. The garbage of that much amount accumulated on the ground. Hanjer Bio-tech was doing the work of disposing off the garbage. They were suppose to generate bi-product out of the garbage, sell it and earn money. After Hanjer left, NMC came up with Biomining project to be done by Zigma Global Environ Solutions Private Limited. Earlier, it was on at snail’s pace but after Abhijit Bangar took the charge of Municipal Commissioner the project gained momentum. The garbage, a mixture of solid and liquid waste is not being disposed of. It should have been processed with the help of incinerator till now.
 
People in Nagpur and around the dumping yard are facing lot of problems. But nobody is caring about the plight of the people. When one enters into the Bhandewadi area one can see a huge collection of garbage everywhere and one can smell it just from the distance of 2 km. Hazardous chemicals that get into the soil (contaminants) can harm plants when they take up the contamination through their roots. If humans eat plants and animals that have been in contact with such polluted soils, there can be negative impact on their health, says one environmentalist.
 
The cases of fire due to chemical reaction inside the garbage at Bhandewadi were also noticed. “Considering all these aspects, we speeded up the project. Day before yesterday we had a meeting over this issue. I asked Zigma to complete the work as early as possible. Accordingly we will start reclaiming the land from June of this year,” assured Bangar while talking to ‘The Hitavada’.
 
Nagpur is facing bad waste management which can result in land and air pollution. Such type of pollution can cause respiratory problems not only to the people living around Bhandewadi but also to the people in city. This non-processed garbage has other adverse health effects as contaminants are absorbed from the lungs into other parts of the body.