According to the Additional Chief Secretary, Local Government, Sindh, Mr Saleem Khan, around 6,113 tons of garbage is generated in Karachi everyday, out of which 5057 tons is lifted and the remaining is left unanswered. In a city of eleven million, this is a major contributor to the filth and disgust that hangs over the port metropolis.
The city is overcrowded; slums have turned into mohallas and even the landfill sites are now residential quarters. Thus, garbage lifting is not the only problem, dumping is yet another issue.
There are three types of garbage, municipal waste, hospital waste and the industrial waste. The CDGK deals with the first two and there can be a solution to the whole issue.
There are 18 towns in Karachi with a total of 543 garbage-lifting vehicles. Out of these 453 are operational. Collection of every garbage ton costs around Rs233 million per day while transportation charges are Rs1.08 million.
Other than the organized collection system, there are the scavengers too who pick 600 tons of recyclable material daily as the recycling industry provides employment to more than 55,000 families. The annual turnover of the industry, with the help of 1000 recycling units in the city, is over Rs1.2 billion.
However, Mr Saleem’s primary task is to iron out the problems that exist in the sector. The related issues are:
Primary stage — from household to dustbin sites are poor attendance of sanitary workers; gradual decrease in dust bins, haphazard accumulation of garbage on streets, in open space and drains. A large number of garbage containers (katchra kundi) are lying in workshops for repair.
Secondary stage — transportation from dustbins to landfill sites: Fifteen to 20 per cent garbage vans remain out of order; landfill sites are situated at long distances ranging from 10 to 70 kilometres (up and down). Out of 1500 hardly 300 to 400 trips of garbage vehicles are off-loaded daily at sites. The remaining are off-loaded at various places.
Final Stage — disposal at landfill sites: Only two official landfill sites are available in the city. They are Jam Jakhro near Surjani Town and Gondpass near Hub River Road. These sites are about 30 to 35km from city center.
Two unofficial sites, one at Rerhi (Landhi) and other at Ibrahim Hyderi are being used unofficially.
The biggest impropriety of the whole garbage collection and disposal system is that there is no log that would record trips the of the garbage vans.
At Jam Jakhro, scavengers burn garbage to sort out recyclable material, thus creating an environmental enigma for the nearby residential localities. At Gondpass, haphazard garbage dumping is done while the garbage off loaded at Rehri Goth is posing a threat to the area’s coastal environment.
RESOURCE GAP: There are 11,000 sanitation staff against the requirement of 28,000. Thus there is just one sanitation worker is for 500 people. The cost of manpower is Rs657 million per annum against Rs1,344 million requirements. Daily waste collection capacity is 5050 tons per day against requirement of 6,100 tons daily. There are 453 garbage vehicles (of the 169 are 10-year old and 284 are more than 10-year old) against the actual requirement of 548 vehicles.
CASE OF PRIVATIZATION: There has been talk of privatizing the whole garbage collection and disposal system. There are a number of reasons for this. The public and public representatives are not satisfied with the performance of the staff of the town; poor management of logistics and to avoid unnecessary intervention of the staff union.
The Shah Faisal Town has taken the first step in this regard by awarding contract to a private contractor to lift and transport garbage from dustbin to the land-fill site for Rs269 per ton. The contract is worth Rs13,455,000. Repair, maintenance, POL, salaries and overtime of the staff is the responsibility of the contractor. Payments to the contract are made on the basis of tonnage. The biggest benefit of this whole exercise is that all of the garbage generated in the area is being lifted and disposed of properly.
GARBAGE TRANSFER STATIONS: Existing vehicle capacity varies from 1.5 to five tons. The hauling trip (up and down) ranges from 10km to 70km to landfill sites that comes to around 36 kilometres. And the best way to deal with this ratio of distance and garbage collection is to deploy the two-stage strategy.
Garbage transfer stations (GTS) are installed at different locations in the city. The maximum distance of the primary collection points to GTS is anywhere between three to four kilometres. The primary vehicles transport the garbage from primary collection point to GTS. The garbage is weighed and relevant information is recorded. The recyclable items are collected and sold — it is optional. The remaining garbage is compacted to reduce the volume. The compacted garbage is filled in long volume containers having a capacity of 35 to 56 cubic metre.
EXPECTED RESULTS: A secondary vehicle will transport the garbage equivalent to the load of six to ten primary vehicles. Primary vehicles will move only within a three to four kilometre radius. The number of trips of primary vehicles will increase to five to six from the existing two to three per day. The primary lifting capacity will enhance from 50 to 100 per cent.
The private sector must be involved ranging from lifting garbage to GTS and then to landfill sites. For the purpose it must be entrusted to install any plant related to garbage.
The CDGK has appointed a consultant to design environment friendly GTS.
Over 10 GTS sites are required but so far only four have been proposed. They are at Mewa Shah, Gulsan-i-Iqbal behind Aziz Bhatti Park, North Karachi and Korangi.
According to the Additional Chief Secretary, Local Government, Sindh, Mr Saleem Khan, around 6,113 tons of garbage is generated in Karachi everyday, out of which 5057 tons is lifted and the remaining is left unanswered. In a city of eleven million, this is a major contributor to the filth and disgust that hangs over the port metropolis.
