The Department of Environment's deputy head for legal and parliamentary affairs criticized Tehran's Municipality for its poor management of waste and dysfunctional system of disposal and treatment.
"The waste management law is not observed effectively in Tehran. Tehran's former mayor [Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf] had committed to putting in place a project for waste separation at source by early 2015, under which all the urban garbage would be collected using mechanized equipment to be sent to processing centers for compost and energy production, while fully meeting the sanitary requirements," Karim Shafei was quoted as saying by ILNA.
"But unfortunately the municipality has failed to implement that project, which, it says, is only being piloted in two or three of its 22 districts," he said.
Shafei made the remarks on Friday after paying a visit to the Aradkouh Complex for Waste Process and Disposal located in south Tehran near Kahrizak town and several dumping grounds and areas where untreated wastewater accumulates in the cities of Vavan and Robat Karim in Tehran Province.
Located 24 km from the southernmost part of Tehran on the old Qom road, the Kahrizak [Aradkouh] landfill is the only center for waste disposal in the capital city and receives nearly 6,000 tons of solid waste on a daily basis.
Poor Standards
Shafei criticized the poor sanitary conditions of garbage transfer to the Kahrizak dump site, which could pose serious environmental hazards.
"Hygiene standards are not fully upheld in transferring the urban waste to the Kahrizak center. Leachate leaks from the garbage trucks have contaminated the areas along the roads to the center."
Small amounts of leachate can pollute large amounts of groundwater.
The environmental official lamented that the waste management system in the capital remains significantly underdeveloped, leaving a major portion of the collected garbage unrecycled.
"From over 8,000 tons of garbage produced in the city of Tehran every day, less than 200 tons are put through industrial processing. The remainder is dumped in the Kahrizak area, releasing leachate that has severely contaminated the soil and underground water resources and polluted the air."
Tehran is the eighth largest producer of municipal waste in the country. The figure is higher in touristic cities in northern provinces.
Globally, the member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development together are the largest waste generators, producing around 1.75 million tons per day.
