A move is underway to acquire a 50-acre piece of land by the Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) to develop a modern waste management facility alongside the existing Landfill Site (LFS) in the city’s Amin Bazar area.

According to official sources, the new site will be an expansion of the current LFS, which was also developed on 50 acres of land.  

The current LFS in Amin Bazar is close to being filled up with the waste collected from the areas under DNCC.

“The LFS in Amin Bazar is overfilled and went to 80 feet high from the level. Now it has become risky for workers to further fill the land with waste,” Captain Mohammad Fida Hasan, Chief Waste Management Officer of the DNCC, told UNB.

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He said the DNCC has completed all the necessary procedures to receive the land from the district administration once the allotted fund is released by the Finance Ministry.

The DNCC will need Tk 450 crore from the GoB (Government of Bangladesh) fund to acquire the land.

Fida Hasan also informed that the new LFS will be developed alongside the establishment of the proposed 42.5 MW Waste-to-Energy power plant which is expected to start power generation from July 2026.

When such a power plant is being developed as part of the waste management system, why is such a new LFS required?-responding to such a question, the DNCC Chief Waste Management Officer said that the new site will have different facilities like electronic waste management, medicate waste treatment, and solid waste management.

This will require new land to develop the facilities, which also include establishment of a training centre and vehicle parking area.

Currently, Dhaka city is collecting 3,000 mts of solid waste from different areas which is about 80 percent of the total waste.

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As per a plan, this total waste will be supplied to the Waste to Energy project daily while CMEC will set up an incineration plant to generate 42.5 MW power and BPDB will purchase the electricity from the plant at US21.78 Cents, equivalent to Tk 18.295, per kilowatt hour (each unit) over a period of 25 years.

But DNCC officials said if any additional wastes are collected, those will be filled in the new modern LFS.

They also said this new system will be developed under its “New Clean Dhaka Master Plan 2018–2032” which was envisioned to introduce “Environmentally Advanced City with Integrated and Sustainable Solid Waste Management: Toward Zero-Waste”.

According to the Master Plan, the core target of the DNCC is collecting more waste generated at households by increasing the collection capacity, reducing waste by introducing waste separation and recycling, and minimizing the volume of the remaining waste that goes to the LFS with intermediate treatment so that the lifespan of LFS can be extended.

This Master Plan highlights four indicators: waste collection, waste reduction, recycling, and to quantitatively monitor landfill disposal.

Read more: E-Waste Crisis: Effects of Electronic Waste on Environment and Human Health