In an innovative eco-friendly step, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) is considering to use the municipal solid waste (MSW) as the sub-base material for augmentation of highway gradients.
The move will save efforts and cost involved in excavation and transportation of landfill sands from one location to another. At the same time, it will help in disposal of municipal waste. As a pilot project, the municipal bodies of national Capital will join hands with the NHAI for utilisation of MSW of Delhi as sub-base material for highway construction in NCR.
For a prototype, the Planning Commission approved the utilisation of the waste produced during the reclamation of the Ghazipur Sanitary landfill Site (SlF). Several highway projects like KMP Expressway and widening of NH-24, Jaipur Expressway, which are coming in and around NCR region, require huge sub-base and
filling material for increasing the gradient of the road
infrastructure.
“MSW management is one the most important aspects of urban infrastructure, more so in rapidly growing metropolitans like Delhi. With all its landfills exhausted, and no space to accommodate more wastes, Delhi is in dire need of establishing facilities that cannot only treat and dispose of fresh wastes, but also reclaim, reuse and recycle old wastes in the landfills all these years,” said an NHAI engineer.
The project would include excavation of the waste, its segregation of recyclable and usable wastes and finally disposal of inert at suitable road construction sites. “The test result of the waste indicates that 50 per cent of the particle size is below 10mm and percentage of heavy metals is within the acceptable range (as per Hazardous Waste Rules 2008 Management Handling and Trans-boundary Movement) which can be used as a
sub-base material for road
construction,” added the
NHAI official.
“Since NHAI is in the process of widening of National Highways in and around Delhi wherein a huge quantity of filling material is required, the usage of the waste will not only reduce the cost but also help in saving the natural resources and improve the environment of the national Capital,” said Vijay Prakash, Engineer-in-Chief of the East Delhi Municipal Corporation, in his letter to the NHAI Chairman RP Singh. EDMC manages the Ghazipur SlF.
The SlF site at Ghazipur in East Delhi was opened in 1984 and is still in operation. It falls under the category of Uncontrolled Solid Waste Disposals Facility.
It is estimated that this site has about 4.5-5.0 million metric tonne of waste. The EDMC has started the process of reclamation of the waste from this site. The other major SlFs is located at Jehangirpuri Bhalswa. Clueless about using the waste, the Government has flirted with several ideas to utilise the waste. One of them was generation of power from the solid waste.