Ambitious Matuail landfill ‘Eco Town’ on the cards
Tender to be floated at the beginning of 2022, feasibility study yet to be completed
Matuail Landfill Eco Town: A revolution in waste management
Najifa Farhat
- Published at 12:33 am October 30th, 2021
Located about 8km away from Dhaka's Gulistan, the Matuail landfill is a 100-acre area that serves as the disposal site for solid waste from areas under DSCC Mahmud Hossain Opu
DSCC hopes to recycle 48% of all waste by 2032
The Matuail Sanitary Landfill authorities plan to build an Eco Town as part of a project to expand the landfill.
Under the project, the Eco Town will be an intermediate treatment zone, with facilities for recycling, biogas production, composting and other methods of converting waste into energy.
The proposed Eco Town, one of ten components in the third phase of the landfill upgradation program, is at a very early stage of planning.
The plan aims to achieve zero waste production through the 3Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle) method. The Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC) hopes to recycle 48% of all waste by 2032.
Currently, only 9% is recycled.
Project director: The plan is ambitious
At present, all the waste of Dhaka city is directly dumped into the Matuail landfill. However, the Clean Dhaka Master Plan (2018-2032) aims to segregate the waste at the ward level.
“We want to divide the waste into four categories: mainly solid, industrial, hazardous, and medical waste,” said Sufiullah Siddik Bhuiyan, executive engineer and project director of the Matuail Sanitary Landfill Land Development Project.
“In solid, we want waste primarily from households and we will isolate biodegradable wastes from plastic, paper, or metal waste. Initially, we will ask city dwellers to keep dry and wet waste separate, to avoid any confusion,” he added.
Also Read - Dhaka landfill emits 4 tons of methane per hour
The Eco Town will consist of five treatment facilities, namely, a recycling plant, a composting plant, a two-unit biogas plant, a construction waste recycling plant and a thermal recycling plant.
The recycling plant will treat 300 tons of dry waste from households, commercial establishments and businesses in the 75 wards under DSCC each day, according to the plan.
The composting and biogas plants are expected to recycle 200 tons of organic waste per day, the construction waste recycling plant 460 tons, and the thermal recycling plant 1,000 tons.
Generating electricity from waste has been a long-term target of the government to reduce the pressure on landfills. However, numerous earlier initiatives have failed despite the enthusiasm of the authorities.
In 2012, the Italian company Management Inter Environment Finance penned an agreement with the Ministry of Local Government to produce electricity from waste at Matuail Landfill, but the deal fell apart due to some issues related to land.
“This is a very ambitious project. As per my knowledge, I haven’t seen any successful implementation of waste to energy conversion in our country, but it’s not impossible. We’re not saying that our plant will produce electricity certainly, rather we are focusing on producing energy, which has many forms,” said Safiullah.
Also Read - In pictures: The never-ending Matuail landfill
According to the official, waste must generate 1500 kW of heat energy in order to produce electricity, but local organic waste generates only 800 kW.
“To compensate for that difference, we have to add other chemicals and components with our wastes,” he said.
The proposed eco-town at DSCC aims to recycle at least 2113 tons of waste a day by 2033.
When to begin?
The action plan is at a very early stage and the Eco Town has a long way to go before seeing actual implementation. However, the DSCC has already finished the process of acquiring 81 acres of land to expand the landfill at a cost of Tk625 crore.
The Eco Town will be built on 31 acres of land with funding from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). DSCC will open a tender for this project at the beginning of 2022, but it is yet to complete the feasibility study towards finalizing the plan.
Currently, work is going on to prepare the land, such as upgrading the drainage system and building fireplaces to burn down hazardous wastes.
Thus, Dhaka dwellers might have to wait a really long time to experience a “real clean Dhaka.”
In November 2020, the government approved the country’s first waste-based 42.5MW power plant at Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) Amin Bazar landfill for a period of 25 years. China Machinery Engineering Corporation is implementing the project with the Power Development Board (PDB).
