India: Choke Point Kolkata

The great emerging powerhouse for world’s economy, India is one of the top five countries generating the highest volume of e-waste. The country’s e-waste is expected to have an annual growth rate of 20%.

By 2020 India would have about 92.2 million tons of solid waste.

There have been lots of environmental crisis experienced in India in recent years. Last year. A landfill at Ghazipur, Delhi caved in and killed about two people while trapping a countless number of vehicles under garbage rubble. This brought to the forefront the risks associated with the uncontrolled dumping of refuse in landfills.

A year before this event, another landfill in Mumbai caught fire. The entire city was engulfed by toxic smoke. Another landfill that is on the brink of collapse is the Dhapa landfill in Kolkata, West Bengal.

The Waste Crisis of West Bengal

Kolkata is home to Dulal and some 14 million other people who reside in a sprawling metropolitan zone which spreads out from the banks of the Hooghly River, the last arm of the Ganges.

Today, the city appears to be at bursting point. At every crossing, traffic chokes the streets. People battle for space on the busy sidewalks and barges criss-cross the Ganges, packed with workers commuting across the great waterway.

West Bengal is located in eastern India and as of 2011, it had over 90 million occupants. Kolkata is the state capital of West Bengal and it is the seventh largest city in India. One of India’s major urban hubs, the city sits on the edge of the Bay of Bengal and has attracted millions of migrants since India gained independence from Great Britain in 1947.

The city has one of the most popular landfills in India. The landfill known as Dhapa accommodates the daily generated 4,000 tons of waste in Kolkata. In addition, reports revealed that 425.72 tons of the waste generated daily in Kolkata is plastic wastes. And Dhapa is the only major landfill servicing the 4.5 million people living in Kolkata.

In addition, Dhapa is presently a mountain of garbage and 20,000 to 30,000 people are living on it. In 2015, the Kolkata municipal corporation (KMC) revealed that the landfill had crossed the 50 feet mark. This means that the landfill is on the verge of a collapse. However, since the waste agency revealed this information there has not been any plan put in place to avoid this chaos. The city still sends all its generated waste to the landfill.

The 30,000 people living and working in Dhapa are continually exposed to untreated waste and all sorts of pollution. Many of these people are making a living by recycling, selling, and dumping wastes. A percentage of these population also grow green vegetables that are supplied to the markets in Kolkata.

Recycling in West Bengal

The Honr. prime minister of India Mr.Narendra Modi launched a massive campaign dubbed Swachh Bharat Campaign that encourages Indians to be more conscious of their environment. The campaign launched under the ministry of housing and urban affairs is working on making cities in India garbage free.

In Kolkata, the Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee launched a similar campaign like Swachh Bharat. The government installed thousands of fiberglass bins and garbage compactors in major parts of the city. However, this campaign does not solve the issue of landfills that are already on the brink of collapse.

West Bengal has not been able to recycle a large percentage of the wastes it produces. Reports showed that the state recycles just about 10 percent of the waste it generates. Majority of the recycling plants at Dhapa landfill utilizes manual processes to recycle waste.

Conclusion

West Bengal’s waste crisis is a major concern for its citizens. The government is working on ending the crisis, but the reality is that it will take more aggressive approaches to put an end to the scourge.