Can Margalla foothills hold federal capital’s trash problem?

CDA officials zero-in on abandoned quarries in Sector A-17 to rechristen as landfills

ISLAMABAD: With the population of the capital more than doubling over the past 20 years, its trash output has also substantially increased. But the capital does not have a permanent spot where it can dispose of this garbage. Now, however, there may be some hope at the bottom this trash hill.

In past, the city’s managers have huddled to deliberate over multiple options to tackle the trash generated by the residents. A number of plans were chalked out in this regard but none of the proposals have yet to materialise into a functional solution to the city’s waste problem since disposal never goes to the top of the civic manager’s priority list.

In 1996-97, the Capital Development Authority (CDA) had embarked on its first serious attempt at creating a landfill to dispose of the city’s trash.



Back then, the CDA had identified 100 acres of land near the Kuri Road on the outskirts of the federal capital to build the first scientific landfill at a cost of a billion rupees.

A project concept-I (PC-I) of the proposed site was prepared in 1996 with financial assistance from the Japan International Co-operation Agency (JICA) and the Japanese government. The Japanese had demonstrated a keen interest in establishing a unique landfill site project in Islamabad to control growing environmental pollution.

However, it could not clear the hurdle of the Economic Affairs Division and the project fell by the wayside.

In 2005 the CDA earmarked Rs765 million for the development of a landfill site for solid waste. The Japanese government agreed to pay around 85 per cent of its total estimated cost while Pakistani government picking up the remaining 15 per cent through its own resources.

However, as the population in the capital doubled from around 800,000 in 1998 to over two million in 2018, schemes to house these people rose to the top of the CDA’s priorities.

Rather than considering the impact, these housing schemes will have on the garbage disposal system of the city, the landfill project was dropped.

However, the CDA did revisit the idea of building a landfill over the years. It has since identified different sites which could serve as a landfill, but none of them was converted into a dumping ground. one could be

During this time, the CDA resorted to first dumping garbage in Sector H-11 and then in Sector I-12 and then a few other areas.

In 2012, the CDA’s top decision-making body, its board, announced that they will set up a temporary landfill will be set up in Sector H-10.

At the beginning of this year, the CDA decided to set up a landfill and waste-to-energy plant in Sector I-17.

For this purpose, the CDA started negotiations with a Chinese firm to set up a plant which generates electricity from waste.



But five months later, this idea too has vanished with the designated area allotted to build a medical city.

Now, the civic body is mulling over the idea of developing a permanent landfill site in Sector A-17 near Sangjiani, in the foothills of the scenic Margalla Hills.

There, the body hopes to recycle massive trenches left by closed down quarries and stone crushing operations.

“We have visited this area and there is no population settled in the site’s vicinity and apparently it is a very suitable site to build a permanent landfill site for solid waste,” CDA Member Planning Asad Mehboob Kiyani confirmed to The Express Tribune.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 16^th, 2018.