East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) Noida Authority were recently caught up in a hilarious case of miscommunication. Despite both the government bodies being involved in solid waste management, it seems neither knew what the other was doing.
It all started when EDMC was informed that Noida Authority was using the dead of night to dump solid waste at the Ghazipur landfill without its knowledge. With people “spotting” Noida Authority trucks near the landill site at night, EDMC seized 26 of the Authority’s trucks at Ghazipur.
However, it later realised that the trucks were dumping segregated dry waste in the adjacent waste-to-energy plant, which Noida Authority was perfectly within its rights to do.
The waste-to-energy plant at Ghazipur is being set up by EDMC with the help of a private firm, IL@FS, under a public-private partnership (PPP). As per official information, IL@FS tied up with Noida Authority for having segregated dry waste brought to the plant, but didn’t convey this to EDMC.
Talking to City Spidey, PK Khandelwal, chief engineer, EDMC, said, “This entire episode can be blamed on a basic lack of communication. As per the guidelines of the Urban Development Ministry, all segregated waste should go to a waste-to-energy plant. Noida Authority doesn’t have any such plant of its own, and hence it was carrying the city’s waste to the one in Ghazipur. However, we were not informed of this, which led to the confusion. However, things have been cleared up now.”
The waste-to-energy plant coverts solid waste — which can include biodegradable material as well as plastic — to refuse derived fuel (RDF). This has a lower calorific value than solid recovered fuel, which is produced by shredding and dehydrating solid waste, typically consisting of combustible components of municipal solid waste.