FIRST PERSON

Over the last month, I havebeen part of the core or-ganising team of ‘Wake up

Clean up Bengaluru’ engagingwith a wide range of stakeholdersaround waste. It is clear that theissue of waste is a layered one —today the discussion spans themiddle-class apartment resident,the pourakarmika working on thestreet, the raddiwallah and his lit-tle shop, and a whole lot of name-less, faceless people in Jolly Mo-halla with deft hands and piles ofwaste all around them. It extendsfrom the dustbin by the road tothe landfills beyond our cities.Everyone seems to have a solu-

tion. When one looks at a problemof this magnitude, it seems point-less to consider what one can doas a citizen to solve it.

But — like many complex prob-lems - it is the simple things thatare essential, if not necessary, tosolve this problem. And the firstof such simple things is segrega-tion. In very simple words, wasteis of three kinds — wet wastewhich can be composted, drywaste which can recycled, andmixed — wet and dry — wastewhich is the cause of most mess.The solution is to start separatingthe wet and dry waste.

There is today enough materi-

al on the internet on what is wetwaste and what is dry, and whatis everything else. The effort liesin the rigour of implementation inour household.

There are many of us who havedone it and seen our separatedwaste get mixed in front of our veryeyes by those who collect it. It isnot accidental or one of ignorance— it is an intentional effort by thewaste contractors - they are not inthe waste business where theymonetise different types of wastebut the logistics business wherethey are measured by the amountof waste they carry. Segregationdoes them no good. So, if they are

going to mix it anyway, is therenothing you can do? For starters,give them wet and dry waste on

different days. Give the wet wasteaway six days week and give awaythe dry waste only on one day.

Or just don’t give the wet wasteaway. It is valuable — it is manureand can power a kitchen. The far-ther it travels from the place it iscreated, the larger the chancesthat it will get mixed. So, the so-lution is to manage wet waste asclose to source as possible.

From khambas at home to biobins for apartments to larger solu-tions for communities — there areproven solutions available todaythat can make this happen. It is def-initely possible to build a distrib-uted setup where every apartment,

community or company can man-age their wet waste. And the grow-ing gardening community in Ban-galore can only benefit from this.

Dry waste is valuable too.Whatever has value, quite literal-ly, is not waste. From cartons tohigh quality plastic, there is a val-ue chain spanning collection, seg-regation, wholesale and recyclinginvolving individuals and organi-sations. And, right down to thelandfill, people seek and scavengefor the last scrap of such materi-als to be able to make money outof it. The city administration is to-day committed to making surethere is a dry waste collection cen-

tre in every ward. You can sellyour dry waste to them regularlyor work with one of the serviceproviders who offer this service.

So, what can you do? As an in-dividual, you can segregate, com-post. As an apartment resident,you can explore, install and usecommunity level solutions. Andkeep the movement on. Our timeto manage waste is now. Wakeup Clean up Bengaluru.

—Rathish Balakrishnan is a co-founder at Sattva Media

and Consulting Pvt. Ltd, an organisation that supports

sustainable growth and social change.

There’s a need to say this again: we all need to clean it up

Rathish Balakrishnan

In the beginning, every-thing was clean. Yes, thatwas during the days ofyore. But till even a fewdecades ago, segregation of

waste was not the talk of thetown. No one had the faintestclue, what this might have meant.It didn’t matter either.

The Bangalore Mahanagara Pa-like (BMP), recollects NS Ra-makanth of Solid Waste Manage-ment Round Table, used to put upconcrete bins at every street cor-ner to collect garbage. The BMPwould engage pourakarmikasand vehicles to clear the trash.Ironically, even during those days,the municipal efforts did not payany dividend — the BMP had toremove the bins since residentswould litter garbage around thebin instead of dumping it inside.

After the BMP metamorphosedinto the BBMP, the concrete binswere removed and a door-to-doorsystem of garbage collection wasintroduced. Even this evidentlyfailed. Bangalore now is a citysteadily sinking under the weightof its own garbage.

Every expert has his/her ownsolution to the problem. Yet, whathas been gaining steam and gath-ering consensus over the last fewweeks has been the well-argueddemand for a separate civic bodyto resolve the garbage crisis ofBangalore. Chief minister JagadishShettar in his budget speech evenannounced the government’swillingness to consider the pro-posal of establishing a separatecivic body to mitigate the city’sgarbage problems.

Grandiose plans of the rulingdispensation invariably come infor criticism, and are often takenwith a pinch of salt. It is all but nat-ural for Bangaloreans to havedoubts on any proposal’s viabilityand, if it becomes a reality, on itseventual functionality too. Thoughthe style of functioning of the Ban-galore Water Supply and Sewer-age Board (BWSSB), Bangalore De-velopment Authority (BDA) andKarnataka State Housing Board(KSHB) deserves its public cen-

sures, the need of the hour, thoseconversant with the issue aver, isto create a separate agency or au-thority to deal with garbage.

Yet, if problems in finding suit-able landfills or locating govern-ment land or acquiring the privateland for landfills are any indica-tion, the BBMP seems more in-clined in resorting to knee-jerk re-actions. The palike certainly hasno policy or method in finding apermanent solution to thegarbage quagmire it has pushedthe city into. Naturally, the con-sensus among many civic expertsis that a separate agency will notonly be able to implement segre-gation of waste at source, but alsoinstall suitable machinery forwaste processing at landfills.

This school of thought has beengaining momentum since August2012 when the garbage issuesnowballed, and the city came tobe known more for its trash, thananything else. There were manywho were ostensibly to blame —right from corporators,pourakarmikas and politiciansto Bangalore Metropolitan TaskForce (BMTF) chief RP Sharma,whose over-enthusiasm in book-ing health inspectors for negli-gence of duty was seen as a con-tributing factor towards exacer-bating the mess.

It is not that there were nogarbage-related problems earlier,but those were managed with thecommitment and dedication ofBBMP health inspectors andpourakarmikas. However, in caseof the August 2012 crisis, thoseexpected to find a solution hadcomplicated it by ensuring thatpourakarmikas joined the strikefor two days. Chaos prevailed, andthe stench was all-pervading.

The mess, meanwhile, is be-coming messier. Many responsi-ble politicians have been com-peting among themselves in as-suring support to engineers andpourakarmikas who were stagingdharna demanding withdrawal ofcases booked by the BMTF police.On the other hand, Bangalore wasproducing 3,500 tonnes of

garbage per day. More than 7,000tonnes of garbage piled up and itbecame tough for pourakarmikasand garbage transport contractorsto clear the garbage.

The increase in quantum ofgarbage arrival at landfills maderesidents of Mandur, Mavallipuraand Gundlahalli protest and opt forviolent methods to preventgarbage-laden trucks. Many non-governmental organisations havebeen striving hard to ensure thesepeople lead healthy life by reduc-ing garbage output to minimumand putting up machinery for ef-fective waste management at thelandfills. The resistance continues.

Solid Waste ManagementRound Table and City Connect areof the opinion that waste man-agement is the responsibility of allBangaloreans and the need of the

hour is sending no more garbageto landfills. “Lack of awareness andcommitment to keep the city cleanis the main cause for the garbagemess,’’ contends NS Ramakanth ofSWMRT. This can arguably bedone better by a new agency cre-ated from scratch.

There are other contentionstoo. News of the visit by a Gujaratdelegation to the KarnatakaCompost Development Corpora-tion premises to replicate similarmodels in that state has recededout of public memory. Gujarathad established more than 20compost development units tofind its own solution to garbage.However, petty politics and greedfor land succeeded in ensuringthat life for KCDC became diffi-cult. The state government is yetto provide funds to install addi-

tional waste processing units andthe corporation needs a few moreyears to clear the garbage moundsat its premises. Apart from this,many compost units started atvarious parks in the city are eitherclosed down or defunct due tovarious reasons. Someone needsto take these issues up. A separateagency? Perhaps.

But that was all in the past. Therecent seven-day waste habba —Wake Up Clean Up Bengaluru —an event on waste managementprovided a platform for varioustrade bodies, hoteliers and in-dustries to make a commitmentin implementing waste process-ing units, thus reducing contri-bution of garbage to the landfills.Earlier, BBMP commissioner Sid-daiah had asserted in public forathat Bangaloreans had no right to

deprive the people of Mandur orMavallipura in leading a decentand healthy life. And in doing this,he had appealed to Bangalore-ans to segregate their waste atsource and deposit the dry wasteat the respective dry waste col-lection centres.

Many — like the Federation ofKarnataka Chambers of Com-merce and Industry (FKCCI), Ban-galore Chambers of Industry andCommerce (BCIC), BangaloreHoteliers’ Association and Con-federation of Real Estate Devel-opers’ Association of India(CREDAI), Bengaluru — respond-ed to the commissioner’s appeal.

FKCCI promised to reduce 400tonnes of garbage per day by cre-ating awareness among tradersand businessmen. The hoteliers’association said it would imple-ment waste managementprocesses wherever possible andcollaborate with service providersto dispose of solid waste. CREDAIBengaluru too assured it woulddirect all its members to ensurethat waste management process-es were in place at future housingprojects. If all goes well, there willbe no reason to believe that Ban-galore will remain as garbage city.

The BBMP has also been inef-fective in tackling the collusionbetween corporators and garbagecontractors. Detractors believethat contractors pay hafta to cor-porators to ensure that no com-plaints are made against them. Afew corporators had reportedlyencouraged their followers andrelatives to grab garbage con-tracts. The menace even com-pelled V Ravichandar, chairmanof Feedback Consulting to de-mand that all corporators take aoath in the BBMP council pledg-ing that they have no commercialinterest in garbage disposal. If theBBMP cannot control its own cor-porators, they can do little to tack-le garbage either.

And that brings one back tofrom where one started — the direneed to have a new waste man-agement authority.

@ymrconnect / y.reddy@dnaindia.net

Waste of Management

The garden city’sgarbage problemis not going to goaway. Bangalore-ans keep generat-ing 3,500 tonnes ofgarbage a day. Theamount is humon-gous and theBBMP is neck deepin its own filth.Opinions aboutsorting out thismess abound, butone idea that hascaught on withmany civic expertsis the need for anew waste man-agement agency, Y MaheswaraReddy writes

NUMBERSPEAK3200

BBMP pourakarmikas

16,000contract pourakarmikas

More than

400autos

200trucks

Lack of awareness and commitment tokeep the city clean is the main causefor the garbage mess.

—NS Ramakanth, Trustee, Solid Waste Management Round Table (SWMRT)

Traders and hoteliers, and evenindustries, can play a key role inminimising garbage output to landfills.It will be better if all Bangaloreans trynot to contribute garbage to landfillswhere tonnes of garbage have alreadypiled up.

—Kalpana Kar, City Connect

Waste of Management—DNA

4 BANGALORE FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2013

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