Solid waste from Ghazipur site to help make national highway

New Delhi, Aug 25 (PTI) Solid waste from Ghazipurlandfill site in east Delhi would be used in the constructionof Delhi-Meerut Expressway, a section of the NH-24, in a moveaimed at curbing pollution in the city. The Standing Committee of the East Delhi MunicipalCorporation yesterday approved the proposal that would pavethe way for EDMC’s collaboration with National HighwayAuthority of India (NHAI) and the Ministry of UrbanDevelopment on this project. "70-80 per cent of the waste would be used inconstruction of Delhi-Meerut Expressway initially. Later, itwould be used for city roads," EDMC Standing CommitteeChairman Jitender Chaudhary said. He said, as part of the tie-up, NHAI would "install aunit" at the site to segregate and process the garbage thatwould be mixed with bitumen for use in the roads. The decision was taken after a study by Council ofScientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)-Central RoadResearch Institute (CRRI) in this regard found the proposal"positive". Commissioned in 1984, Ghazipur landfill site is spreadover nearly 30 hectares and per day 2,500 tonne of garbage isdumped there. A total of 130 lakh tonne of garbage iscurrently dumped at the site and average height of the dump is50 m. "We hope that this project would not only help cut thepollution level but also improve the look and feel of thearea, as people sometimes say, the huge mountain of garbage isvisible from even far-off places," Chaudhary said. The Ghazipur site has a waste-to-energy plant thatconverts 2,000 tonne of garbage to 12 MW of energy, he said. EDMC had earlier approached NHAI to make use of waste atGhazipur landfill site, whereupon NHAI had commissionedanalytical study through CRRI. PTI KND AAR RGAAR