By Ishita Malakar
The Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) had been put under notice by the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) as the Moshi Garbage depot gets identified among the top 22 methane emitting hotspots across India. This data has been declared by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) earlier in a development following the same study.
All while ISRO came up with this data, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) had also set up a board of members for recommending measures to control and reduce the methane emissions. MPCB has also asked for updates from PCMC regarding the same, later. But although the civic body came up with a response, it could not satisfy the MPCB officials. While a follow up of that garbage spot later revealed a lot of irregularities in maintenance and following up of proper measures which led to the issuance of this notice by MPCB.
There are also other irregularities found associated with this notice, especially violations when it comes to the absence of bioremediation of biomedical waste, that too from COVID- era, burnt oil being disposed off improperly and without keeping safety hazards in mind, and even in a place that lacks insufficient space for processing of all the waste disposed there. There are also zero equipment kept in that place to monitor methane emissions, or even any kind of firefighting systems for safety.
The regulations provided by MPCB are to altogether stop dumping waste there, have a time bound plan for bioremediation, monitoring methane emissions regularly, installing methane detecting equipment along with firefighting strategies, keep a record of waste dumped daily, process 100% of accumulated waste and deposit two lakh as a bank guarantee within 15 days, failing which, the MPCB Regional Officer, Jagannath Salunke warned of legal actions.
The Environment Department Officer, Sanjay Kulkarni mentioned, “Covid -era biomedical waste was treated and disposed off at a facility near YCM Hospital and Bioremediation is ongoing at the depot for past year. Every necessary update would be provided to MPCB”.