Not in my backyard
Nobody wants to have them in their backyard because of pollution and other ‘undesirability’ factors including lower real estate prices, even though these facilities are clearly beneficial if not crucial to any community.
The establishment of a modern engineered landfill at Kurri, city authorities say, is integral to Islamabad’s waste disposal strategy for the next few decades.
So, are objections to the city’s first landfill site, raised by participants at a recent public hearing at the Convention Centre and at an earlier public hearing in 2006, a case of the not-in-my-backyard (nimby) syndrome?
Even the MNA of the capital’s rural constituency, to which Kurri belongs, does not want the landfill in his constituency’s backyard. At the recent hearing, he reportedly raised objections to the landfill location that were similar to the objections raised by some other environmentalists, but pointed out that he was not against the setting up of a landfill and compost plant as such.
Open dumping, hitherto the most common, convenient and inexpensive method of solid waste disposal in Pakistani cities, is associated with water pollution and public health problems. Upgrading open dumps into properly managed, environmentally acceptable landfill sites, which the developed countries have been doing for decades, is something which many developing countries have taken up only in recent years.
This, however, as we have seen in Islamabad’s case, can be very difficult in practice due to controversy over suitable sites for these landfills and potential water pollution problems.
Rather than upgrading the city’s longstanding open dumping ground in H-12 sector into a hi-tech properly controlled new landfill site, the city authorities decided on a totally new site at rural Kurri, despite the fact that Kurri and the surrounding areas are widely recognised as surface and groundwater recharging zones for the twin cities.
Meanwhile, being part of the H-series sectors designated for institutional development, H-12 sector was allocated to Nust for establishing its Islamabad campus, just as H-10 sector has been allocated to the International Islamic University.
Kurri, on the other hand, is one of the eight model villages in the Islamabad Park rural area south of Rawal Lake, the other seven being Rawal, Humak, Chak Shehzad, Margalla, Tarlai Kalan, Farash and Nurpur Shahan.
The concept of model villages was not in the city’s original master plan but was first introduced in the 1980s, ostensibly to re-settle the people whose ancestral lands had been taken over for building the capital city.
These model villages were provided with basic infrastructure like approach road, drinking water, electricity, drainage, sewerage and other civic amenities like basic health units, schools, mosques, parks and shopping centres.
However, most of these model villages soon turned into model towns accommodating people who cannot afford the pricey houses and rents in the urban sectors of Islamabad.
Whether it is Kurri or any other location, if a landfill site is not selected properly from an environmental engineering perspective, it will not only increase design, construction and operating costs, but also maximise instead of minimise the environmental impact, particularly on water resources.
Given our financial, technical and human resource limitations, thus making it difficult to construct and operate landfills that meet the highest environmental standards, all the more important it is to effectively address the protection of water resources from the outset in the landfill siting process.
The experience of other developing countries which have established such modern landfills, e.g., Thailand, Vietnam, etc., is worth considering in this respect.
Many of these countries’ experience has been that adopting guidelines or regulations of higher-income countries without modifying or adapting them to local conditions creates problems because the development of these landfills involves complex engineering design and construction techniques, as well as high standards of operation and extensive environmental monitoring.
Apart from the problem of gaining public acceptance for landfill sites from the environmental, economic and social perspective, another problem associated with the establishment of landfills in many Asian cities, Islamabad being no exception, is the likely displacement of a large scavenger community who depend for their livelihood on the city’s waste.
Although the health condition of these scavengers is something that needs addressing, it is not possible to dismiss the current informal recycling system, already well established in the twin cities.
This informal recycling sector is making an important contribution to the economy and the environment, considering the savings in both raw materials and energy costs through such recycling.
Besides, given the current rates of poverty and unemployment, prohibiting scavenging would be difficult to justify and implement. As one foreign expert had suggested in the 1990s, for the developing countries, an appropriate and sustainable solution to the solid waste problem needs to build on, rather than undermine, the existing recycling system, at least in the short term.
Despite all the potential shortcomings, landfills are inevitable for any city. Open dumping, and burning, is no longer an acceptable solid waste disposal method and incineration of such a bulk of solid waste is too expensive and energy consuming.
The question is, how trustworthy can our authorities be in selecting a site and implementing sufficient measures that will provide the greatest public health and environmental protection in the event of landfill containment failure?