The blaze at Ghazipur landfill in east Delhi was extinguished in the early hours of Sunday after over seven hours of fire-fighting operations. A fresh fire was, however, reported just hours later illustrating that the authorities are yet to learn their lesson in waste management.
The small fire on Sunday was brought under control quickly by fire tenders.
Fires at landfills are usually caused when methane gas, which is released when trash decomposes, comes in contact with air.
In some cases, however, the ragpickers set the garbage on fire in order to quickly sift through the trash for recyclable items.
One fire tender
When the Capital’s biggest landfills Bhalswa and Ghazipur caught fire in April last year, Environment Minister Imran Hussain had announced that 15 fire tenders would be stationed at the landfills round-the-clock.
However, when the blaze started at Ghazipur landfill on Saturday evening, only one fire tender was stationed at the spot.
The recent fire has exposed that the promises made by authorities to prevent landfill fires are just on paper and little has been implemented on the ground.
For instance, it was recommended that the capacity of the gas extraction plant installed by GAIL to catch methane should be increased. The trapping of methane would decrease the chances of such fires that are caused naturally.
The plan, however, has seen no progress yet.
‘Many promises made’
“Many promises were made such as a water tank with a booster system, and that a public address system would be installed to prevent unauthorised entry to landfill site, but most of these projects have not moved at all. Garbage management still remains poor,” said Chitra Mukherjee, head of programmes (operations) at NGO Chintan, which has been working towards waste management in the Capital.
The 45-metre high Ghazipur landfill was shut down following an order by Lieutenant-Governor Anil Baijal after a portion of the landfill collapsed, killing people.
The landfill site was saturated in 2002, and the civic body has been “looking for an alternative site for a long time, but a clearance from the NGT is needed”.
The East Delhi Municipal Corporation on Sunday said it has set the ball rolling for setting up a waste—to—energy plant of 2,000 metric tonnes capacity at Ghazipur landfill site.