Keeping in consideration rising pollution levels due to burning of waste, East Corporation has installed a plant at its Ghazipur landfill site to extract methane gas on a trial basis. The highly flammable gas is found in massive amounts at landfill sites due to mix-up of different types of chemicals. Mayor Harshdeep Malhotra said, “If the gas extraction plan succeeds during the trial phase, then East Corporation will try to convert the methane into CNG.“ Burning of waste is a normal sight at landfill sites across the city as most have started overflowing. Officials said that waste burning at landfill sites contributes more to pollution as the content of pollutants contains a dangerous mixture of chemicals.“There is no system to monitor the disposal of waste at any landfill site. Due to this, there is no record of what sort of waste is mixed with the existing pile,“ said an official. Senior officials, however, added that segregation is the only way to minimise burning of waste at landfill sites.“We need to segregate waste at the source to avoid mixing of different kinds of chemicals. This will also minimise waste burning at landfill sites. Unfortunately , civic bodies do not have such infrastructure or willingness to pull off the job,“ said an official. However, Malhotra said that the east civic body cannot start segregation process for now. “There are several reasons for not being able to segregate waste, but the alternative method of extracting methane gas should do the same job,“ he said. National Green Tribunal had directed the municipalities to monitor burning of leaves and waste and challan those violating the order. However, the east civic body has only challaned 217 violators and collected Rs 4.8 lakh as fine till date. “We are short staffed so cannot track down at least 80% defaulters,“ added an official.