Waste Management Being Modernized: Taposh

The Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC) is set to purchase modern machineries, vehicles and equipment along with planning to build an Intermediate Treatment Facility at the city's Matuail central waste warehouse to modernize the overall waste management, reports BSS.

"We are going to modernize the waste management system by purchasing the ultra modern equipment, machineries and vehicles," DSCC Mayor Barrister Sheikh Fazle Noor Taposh told the media in an interview.

The mayor said they have a plan to set up an Intermediate Treatment Facility on 31 acres of land at Matuail central waste depot, adding that acquisition of land to this end has already been completed.

Barrister Taposh said the DSCC has already initiated the process to buy Horizontal Directional Drilling (HDD) machine and compactor vehicles having capacity of carrying 10 tons and six tons of waste.

"We will procure 30 compactor vehicles involving Taka 50 crore by this fiscal through international tender with our own funds while a process is also taken to purchase over 100 compactor vehicles to increase collection and transportation of waste," he said.

The DSCC has also decided to purchase required equipment such as long bum and short bum to collect waste from the canals, he added.

"We will use amphibious excavators and horizontal directional drilling machines to remove waste from the canals this time which will help save time," he said.

Once the compactor vehicles, Horizontal Directional Drilling and other equipment are purchased, he said that the DSCC will be able to collect huge amount of waste at shortest time.

Barrister Taposh said they have put emphasis on collecting waste and transporting it directly to the central warehouse at Matuail shortly by adopting modern methods.

He said, "You know, after taking charge of the mayor, I have prioritized some works including waste management. I have reshuffled the waste management system by adopting the ward-based approach developed by the JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency)."   

He said the DSCC has a plan to build waste transfer centers or Secondary Transfer Station (STS) in all the 75 wards under its jurisdiction.

"Waste transfer centers have already been built in 42 wards while the remaining 33 wards will get the STS by this year," Barrister Taposh said.

The mayor said they consider widening the activities of collecting medical waste at regional level as this kind of garbage are increasing day by day.

He also said they have appointed a contractor in each ward to collect garbage from house to house and transport those directly to the Matual central waste depot.

In this connection, he said, "We have taken a policy that no more garbage or waste remain on roads and in open places."

The mayor said they have already picked up 8 lakh tons of waste from canals, box-culverts and drains after taking control of those from WASA since January last year.

The DSCC has so far collected 6.94 lakh tons of household garbage in the last 10 months, he continued.