TEAM HERALD
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MARGAO: Margao Municipal Council’s decision to go for capping of the Sonsodo waste-dumping site has come under the scanner of the Goa State Pollution Control Board.
The GSPCB have now asked the civic body to conduct cost-benefit analysis of both the proposals ~ scientific closure/capping and segregation and co-incineration of the existing waste.
With the Kerala-based consultant Gopalkrishnan estimating that the capping work would cost the civic body around Rs 6.5 crore, GSPCB has thrown up a host of questions and directed the municipality to file a compliance report on the capping proposal.
In the latest communiqué to the civic body, GSPCB Member Secretary Levinson Martins has asserted that the consultant engaged by the civic body should explore the possibility of setting up of a trammel and rotary sieve to sort out the bio-degradable and non-biodegradable waste. “The non-biodegradable waste which could be approximately 30-40 per cent of the total existing waste could be dispose off for co-incineration,” Martins said.
The municipality was further directed to ask its consultant to explore the possibility of using the biodegradable waste for carrying out plantation of ornamental plants, since the residual waste could find its way in the land-fill site.
Martins told Herald that this would result in making the existing dumping site admeasuring 15,000 sq mts available for processing of the waste generated in the city hereafter and in the future. “The existing land admeasuring 15,000 sq mts would be rendered useless once the site is capped as per the proposal. The purpose of asking the civic body to ask its consultant to explore ways of disposing the existing waste is to save the some land for the future. Once capped, the existing site will be forever lost for any use. Let the consultant give his report on the GSPCB’s suggestions,” remarked Martins.
He pointed out that the calorific value of the mixed waste could also be ascertained to explore the possibility of co-incineration of waste without segregation. “Let the civic body work out the cost-benefit ratio in respect of both capping of the site and segregation of the waste,” he said.
What’s interesting to note is that Fomento Green was mandated by the Concession Agreement signed with the Margao Municipal Council to segregate the existing waste, with the agreement casting responsibility on the civic body to cart out the segregated waste. However, the question of capping the existing Sonsodo site was first mooted by Fomento Green after its report spoke about the presence of heavy metals in the existing waste, which could pose a health hazard if the waste was to be used for land filling as proposed by the civic body.
A consultant engaged by the civic body to ascertain the chemical content of the waste had confirmed the presence of heavy metals in the waste, which prompted the Margao Municipal Council to go in for the scientific capping of the Sonsodo site.
