HYDERABAD: Thousands of tonnes of debris and waste material, generated during the recent five-day ‘Swachh Hyderabad-Swachh Telangana’ programme, is being dumped in an open land near the Snow World at the Lower Tank Bund. The debris and construction waste material should be dumped at the Construction and Demolition waste (C&D) yard but the GHMC does not have a C&D waste yard either in the city or its outskirts.
As per municipal rules, debris cannot be dumped in the garbage dumping yard! It must be transported to a C&D yard for the simple reason that such waste material consists of concrete, plaster, broken bricks, silt and municipal solid waste making it unsuitable for composting or energy recovery.
The Delhi and Mumbai corporations have an exclusive C&D yard to deal with debris and construction waste material generated due to construction activities. About 500 tonnes per day (TPD) of C&D waste is generated in Hyderabad. The C&D waste is generated as a result of construction and demolition of buildings, roads and others.
The plan to set up a C&D yard remains only on paper. More than five years ago, the GHMC had proposed to establish a C&D yard in the city but the plan has failed to materialise due to various reasons. The GHMC had identified a land quarry site of over 10 acres for the proposed C&D yard. The decision to have a C&D yard was taken by the previous elected body of the GHMC. In Delhi, nearly 40 per cent of C&D waste is converted into useful products such as paving blocks.