Urban Bystander
On the morning the waste management tender returned from the dead for the fourth time, Mirza was already waiting.
In his fifty-eight years of documenting Islamabad’s search for a permanent landfill, he had learned that resurrection isn’t a miracle, it’s a procurement category.
At the I-11 transfer station, the arithmetic of garbage disposal unfolds with mathematical precision: fifty trucks arrive each morning bearing the city’s daily offerings. Five to six leave for the Lohsar dumping site in Rawalpindi. Within six weeks, that’s 1,350 truckloads sitting idle. The station was meant to be temporary. By now, it has developed its own weather system.
The facts are simple: the city produces 1,535 to 2,000 tonnes of waste daily. CDA manages 60 -70 percent. The rest exercises its constitutional right to roam, across roads, into streams, through markets. Call it the informal sector.
Mirza’s records chronicle fifty-eight years of searching: Kuri (2004-2012), approved, road built for Rs 1 billion. Developers prevailed, road remains, leading to nothing. Sangjani (2018), Proposed. Rejected. Residents protested. CDA found this surprising. H-16 (2021), floated Monday, litigated Tuesday, withdrawn Wednesday. Efficiency. I-12, currently receiving 800 tonnes daily in what was meant to be residential; garbage arrived first and claims squatter’s rights. Lohsar (2025-present), awaiting clearance; estimated timeline, five years. “Every site was meant to be final”, Mirza told the Director of Pending Approvals. “But final is not a place we reach; it’s a direction we face while standing still.”
The Integrated Solid Waste Management Tender, worth Rs 24 billion over ten years, was floated December 30, 2024. By March: postponed. By April: re-postponed. By June: questioned. By July the Directorate of Infinite Revision announced another fresh start, supervised by the Deputy Director for Temporary Arrangements and Long Term Delay, a man whose optimism could power streetlights if only connected. The tender has died and returned so many times it has developed a seasonal pattern, like monsoons.
The latest tender promises: households will have two bins, markets three, transfer stations will be mechanized, composting will happen, carbon credits will flow, and a 2,000-kanal sanitary landfill will rise where waste becomes science. CDA currently spends Rs 3.1 billion annually achieving 60 percent effectiveness. The new plan promises 100 percent effectiveness, which means either the plan is brilliant or the person who made the PowerPoint should run for office.
While Islamabad renews its tenders, others renew their systems. Milan transformed in three years; South Korea perfected in three decades; San Francisco began in 1989 and took thirty-five. Islamabad has spent fifty-eight thinking where to dig. Still, hope seeps through: a repainted bin, a child’s essay My Green City, a mechanic keeping Truck 51 alive on faith, believing it too will escape.
The city pays Rawalpindi Waste Management Company Rs 1,350 per tonne via contracts renewed every three to six months, short enough to be called temporary, long enough to be practically permanent. RWMC transports roughly 10 percent of what arrives at I-11 daily. The other 90 percent achieves enlightenment through stillness.
At Lohsar, mixed categories accumulate: household waste philosophizes with industrial, medical waste debates with political. And the consequences: cadmium fifteen times WHO limits, lead nine times over, contamination one meter deep. The heavy metals, unburdened by committees, simply accumulate.
Meanwhile, fifty trucks arrive at I-11 each dawn. Five or six leave. The garbage, ancient, patient, immortal, continues to accumulate.
Yet not all is decay. The file exists. The money exists. The intention persists. Perhaps the fifty-ninth year will differ. Mirza closes his ledger: “Tender reborn. Timeline adjustable. Site negotiable. Hope biodegradable. Management infinitely renewable.”
After fifty-eight years, the garbage has learned that patience outlasts policy. And somehow, despite everything, the city keeps trying again.
The writer can be reached at [email protected]
