the goan I network
MARGAO
More than six years after the waste treatment plant at Sonsodo went into operation in 2012, open dumping of waste is back at the decades old dump with tons of solid waste having found its way at the site in the last four days.
And, with Fomento making it crystal clear to the Margao Municipal Council that it will no longer accept mixed waste at the waste treatment plant and that waste segregation at source still a far cry in the city, open dumping of waste at Sonsodo is expected to continue at least in the immediate future.
It was on December 12, 2012 that open dumping of waste at Sonsodo had come to a halt when municipal trucks-laden with waste dumped the city waste inside the waste treatment plant. Since then, open waste dumping had officially come to a halt, though waste rejects from the plant had all headed to the dump with the Margao Municipal Council supplying unsegregated waste.
While the MMC authorities maintained that open dumping of waste at the Sonsodo dump is a temporary measure adopted to tide over the problem with the waste treatment plant, choked with waste rejects, the absence of waste segregation at source will leave the MMC with little option than to dump the daily unsegregated waste at the Sonsodo site.
For, Fomento has already made it amply clear to the civic body that the plant will only accept segregated waste in the future, implying that tons of unsegregated waste transported to Sonsodo, will only find its way on the existing dump if Fomento sticks to its stand of not accepting unsegregated waste inside the plant.
A MMC official admitted in private that with waste segregation at source still a far cry, and Fomento insisting only on segregated waste at the plant, open dumping may have to be continued for some time till waste segregation of source catches up with the citizens. “The MMC has indeed a task cut out to go all out for waste segregation at source. We do not know how far we will succeed on the waste segregation front, but it is a fact that waste segregation is facing a big challenge to take the exercise to its logical conclusion, with Fomento’s ultimatum not to supply mixed waste to the civic body,” the official added.
