Another landfill site to tackle Karachi garbage, on cards

KARACHI: The government authorities have decided to allocate another landfill site for Karachi to manage the city’s garbage problem, ARY News reported on Monday.

The proposed landfill site being planned at Dhabeji, which will be spreading over an area of 3000 acres, sources said.

The site would have specific blocks for separate types of garbage.

Proposed Dhabeji landfill site will manage the garbage of Karachi for a period of nine years and it will be the largest landfill site in Pakistan, according to the sources.

The authorities have also a plan to install a power plant to generate electricity from the garbage in partnership with the private sector, sources further said.

Karachi has the potential to build two waste-to-energy plants at Jam Chakro and Gond Pass landfill sites, experts earlier said.

The capacity of Karachi’s existing two landfill sites at Jam Chakro and Gondpass in district west is diminishing with the passing time.

The government has launched a campaign in September to clean the metropolis and address chronic garbage problem, which has now become a major point of the opposition criticizing the provincial government headed by Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah.

Karachi, the largest city of Pakistan, is facing an emergency situation due to garbage littered along the roads and streets of the city.

Of the nearly 13,000 tonnes of garbage thrown out onto the city daily by a population of over 13 million, nearly 70% reaches the two landfill sites, while the rest remains strewn around the city in drains and some even finds its way quietly into the Arabian Sea, a study of the problem said.