Punjab

Capital’s waste to be dumped at Losar landfill site

Citizens reject decision, vow to move environment tribunal today

Our Correspondent January 12, 2024

The waste site in Niederzissen sits about 20 kilometres (12 miles) from the Ahr valley, where, on the night of July 14, the river burst its banks. PHOTO: AFP

RAWALPINDI:

The Islamabad district administration has won approval to dump garbage collected from the federal capital territory near Losar – a suburb of Rawalpindi district – despite the appeals made by citizens.

About 600 kanals of land next to the existing garbage dump at Losar has been chosen as a garbage disposal area for trash coming in from the neighbouring capital city. This development comes after the Ministry of Environmental Protection of Punjab upheld the decision of the Joint Public Hearing Committee of the Punjab Environment Protection Department (EPD) and the Islamabad district administration.

However, the residents of the area have announced to challenge this decision. The decision will be contested in the tribunal to be held on Friday (today).

The dumping ground at Losar was built in 2010. It covers 600 kanals of land. Garbage collected from the entire Rawalpindi district has been dumped there for the past 15 years. The trash is disposed of untreated and gathered at the site in exposed piles which leads to various diseases of the nose, ears, throat and eyes that pose a potential threat for the 200,000 residents of the area.

Last year in February 2023, the Rawalpindi commissioner approved the CDA’s request, not only allowing them to dump garbage at Losar but also granting them another 600 kanals of land for the dump’s expansion. This move was protested against by citizens of the area.

Citizens’ Action Committee, Chairman, Fayyaz Shah Gilani, said, “The local population in Losar is extremely upset with the garbage dumping ground. In the February 8 elections, we will only cast votes for the candidate who promises to remove this dumping ground from here, otherwise, the entire population of the area will boycott the elections.”

“These are our ancestral lands and we will not give them up to Islamabad as a garbage dumping ground. Islamabad has a lot of land lying idle. Its district administration should build its dumping ground within its areas instead of dumping its garbage in the Rawalpindi district,” he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 12^th, 2024.