KARACHI, Oct 28: The city district government will shortly launch a joint venture in transportation and disposal of solid waste with private sector in Karachi.

All formalities have been completed and the system is expected to start functioning in a month, said Khalid Jawaid, District Officer, Solid Waste Management.

The defunct KMC had initiated negotiations in this regard with the private sector parties, but the matter could not be finalized due to certain reasons. However, the city government has again taken up the matter with the private sector and is in the final stage, he added.

In most of the countries, where solid waste management is working effectively, the private sector has always been involved, he said, adding that the experience made in the past for involving the private sector had proved that the first and essential requirement of the city was the installation of garbage stations.

The KMC had planned a garbage train project, but that also failed since no proper transfer facility could be developed by that time, he told.

Regarding the failures of earlier efforts for privatization of solid waste disposal system in DMC Central and East, the District Officer said that the system failed in Central since payment made to the contractor was not on weight basis and instead it was made on the basis of personnel certification. While in DMC East, the payments were made on weight basis and the result was that the contractor used to mix debris and other heavy material in the garbage to increase its tonnage, he added.

The city government has formulated a solid waste management plan, which proposes setting up of garbage transfer stations for two-stage transportation system as transportation of garbage at a distance of 30 to 35 kilometres had been found neither possible nor economical, the DO said.

The less distance would increase the number of trips as the garbage van would have to shuttle between the garbage area and the GTS just five kilometres far, he added.

Mr Jawaid said the proposed plan anticipated short and long terms measures for the disposal of garbage. The short term measures included selecting different locations in the city, carrying out minimum civil work, installation of a weigh bridge, transportation of garbage from dust bins to GTS and from there to landfill site, while the long term plan envisaged construction of close building, provision of segregation and compaction facilities, besides a transportation fleet.

All these stages could be privatized and assigned to one or more contractor, he added.

Talking about disposal of hazardous hospital waste, he said, Pakistan Environmental Protection Act 1997 declared the hospital waste as hazardous and envisaged that its disposal was the responsibility of the producer. However, realizing that it was not possible for each hospital to have its own proper system, the defunct KMC had initiated a scheme and installed two incinerators of 10 tones-a-day capacity each, at Mewashah.

The Aga Khan hospital, Civil Hospital, JPMC, Liaquat National Hospital etc, have their own incinerators. However, the city government is also collecting waste from 100 hospitals, clinics and laboratories in the city.—PPI