Expressing concern over legacy waste, the National Green Tribunal has said it is high time such sites are cleared and solid waste collected is disposed of scientifically.
Legacy waste by itself continues to be a serious problem at most of the places with the potential to cause air, water and land pollution, affecting public health, the Principal Bench of the NGT headed by its Chairperson Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel said. The bench made this observation while dealing with a plea alleging illegal dumping of solid waste in Adampur village, Tehsil Wadim in Rajasthan's Dholpur district.
"Legacy waste by itself continues to be a serious problem at most of the places with potential to cause air, water and land pollution and affect public health. Huge valuable urban land is unnecessarily held up under the legacy waste," the Bench observed.
The green panel said it is well known that the challenge of solid waste management is of universal nature and the NGT has dealt with the issue of non-compliance of statutory rules on the subject by various orders applicable throughout the country.
It is high time that all legacy waste sites are cleared and the solid waste generated and collected is scientifically disposed of so as to result in zero leftover waste at the end of the day, the NGT said.
Last week, Karnataka, while submitting a compliance report to the NGT about the solid waste management rules, said that a total of 313 urban local bodies are generating 11,085 tonnes of municipal solid waste per day including wet and dry waste. Of which 10,662 tonnes of waste is being collected every day.
The state also informed that approximately 1.5 crore tonnes of legacy waste existed in the state in 26 cities having one lakh population and steps are being taken to its scientific disposal.
(Published 20 August 2021, 12:52 IST)
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