Waste disposal costs witness a spike

With urbanisation transforming the landscape of the country, vis a vis an increase in human activity, the accompanying surge in garbage production has turned waste disposal into a billion-rupee business.

Despite the Sindh government allocating Rs 12 billion for the Sindh Solid Waste Management Board (SSWMB) for the financial year 2022-23, for the collection, processing and disposal of solid waste, the Board has now requested an additional Rs 2 billion for the job - justifying the demand by alluding to a spike in the quantity of waste produced in the port city.

“During the last two years, the quantity of waste collected per day has doubled. Previously, around 5 tonnes would be collected but now we have to manage almost 10 tonnes of waste daily. Resultantly, our costs for waste collection have gone up incredibly,” revealed Zubair Chana, former managing director of the SSWMB.

Chana’s claims are backed by data from the provincial Department of Finance, which shows that even for the preceding financial year 2021-22, SSWMB had demanded an additional Rs 2 billion after it had been allocated Rs 8 billion for the activity.

According to Chana, a major reason behind the spike in the quantity of waste collected is the expansion of the area where waste collectors operate.

“We now collect garbage from all districts of the province, including areas outside Karachi,” he informed.

However, the expansion of the garbage collection area is not the sole reason for the spike in costs, as the outsourcing of waste disposal to private contractors has pushed up the total costs exponentially.

According to sources privy to the information, almost 90 per cent of the workload of waste management, from collection to transport and even disposal, has been outsourced to private entities including foreign companies, which issue bills in dollars, rendering the total cost of waste disposal extremely high.

The Express Tribune contacted Syed Imtiaz Shah, Managing Director of SSWMB, to confirm the veracity of the claims vis a vis expensive foreign contractors but did not hear back from him.

Thus The Express Tribune reached out to Provincial Local Government Minister, Syed Nasir Hussain Shah, who defended the growing expenditure of SSWMB by stating that the Board had expanded its network in other districts of the province after Karachi.

“Moreover, some operational work has been outsourced to Chinese companies, which charge us in dollars,” informed Shah.

Pollution overload Apart from overburdening the finances of the country, waste management is also an immensely polluting affair in Karachi, where numerous on-ground dumping sites are used to accumulate waste collected from major commercial and residential areas.

Experts also point out the fact that landfill sites across the city are highly unsafe, since the toxic elements of waste easily penetrate into streams of underground water, thereby insidiously polluting the water supply.

In his response to concerns highlighting the land and water pollution instigated by unsafe waste disposals, Tariq Nizamani, Executive Director Operations at SSWMB said, “we have planned a project in affiliation with the World Bank called the Solid Waste Emergency and Efficiency Project.

After its culmination, garbage will not be seen lying around Karachi and landfill sites will be transformed in accordance with scientific standards to protect underground water from pollution.