What a waste! Bengaluru's garbage plan still in the bin

What a waste! Bengaluru's garbage plan still in the bin
Benglauru,


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TAKE A NOTE OF THIS For more information on solid waste t management contact: i t Full Circle on 23336030 or 94492 20484 l Or log on to -- s www.saahas.org BBMP's garbage collection and manage ment is a failure. We at Citizen Action Forum intend to make a presentation before the mayor, commissioner and corporators to demonstrate that segregation of waste at source saves Rs 100 crore and scientific disposal helps prevent spread of diseases.
N. Mukund Rao, member of Cit izen Action Forum, Jayanagar BBMP must be given a road map on converting waste into resources. But it cannot do it alone, the people too must segregate waste before disposing off it.
BBMP must hire trucks with separate compartments for dry and wet waste.

A.N. Yellappa Reddy, environmentalist There is a statute which says that all dumping yards must have environment clearance. All sites notified for solid waste management must undergo an environment impact assessment study. BBMP must create a separate body with more powers to manage garbage in the city.

Capt. Raja Rao, engineer

by policies on paper, Bengaluru should be a very clean city. It supposedly has door-to-door garbage collection, no dustbins and the streets are reportedly swept clean everyday by the pourakarmikas. But you only need to step out of your home and travel a few yards to see how filthy the city really is, even after the pourakarmikas have just done their early morning rounds.
Visit the so-called upmarket shopping centres like Commercial Street and Brigade Road at any time of the day and you are greeted with loads of rubbish on the roadside. Travel further to some of the suburbs and the stench is unbearable from the heaps of garbage that find their way on to the streets, attracting mosquitoes, stray dogs and cows.

Introduced with great of fanfare some years ago, door-to-door garbage collection does not seem to be working well in a number of neighbourhoods as the rubbish still finds its way on to the streets.
The The absence of dustbins makes things only worse as garbage is allowed to rot in the open. People are so fed up with diseases that the garbage throws up that they came out on the streets to protest the death of a 15year-old boy in Mavallipura when it was reported he died of dengue.

Some 30 per cent of the 3,200 metric tonnes of garbage which the city generates every day, is dumped in various street corners and fo open drains, according to ti estimates. But this does not u seem to bother BBMP, con ra tent with its schemes on gi paper, that don't seem to m serve the purpose of keep m ing the city clean. Even p election of corporators m doesn't seem to be helping re matters as they too don't w seem to think there is a it, problem to be solved. th But Jayamahal corporator it M.K. Gunashekar blames pl BBMP engineers for the poor garbage collection. He claims there is an unholy nexus between contractors and BBMP engineers in garbage management. "Although environmental engineers are supposed to oversee garbage maintenance, the money is released by other engineers who have nothing to do with it," he alleges observing that the garbage disposal system itself is unscientific, with plastic waste being allowed to choke drains. He points out that BBMP should be relying only on competent contrac tors for garbage disposal and using scientific dump ing yards to treat the rubbish the city generates.

Dr Meenakshi Bharath who is playing a vital role in garbage segregation in Ma lleswaram, has a very useful suggestion to make, which could help keep the rubbish off the streets, defeating any garbage scams that may be afoot. People must be taught to turn their garbage into co mpost which can be used in the parks and gardens of Bengaluru, she says.

"BBMP must fund form ing of compost pits in parks and grounds. Dry waste like leaves and waste paper can be processed into manure and used for gardening," she rightly points out, also suggesting that people sho uld be encouraged to segre gate their waste before dis posing of it by BBMP. "Po urakarmikas too must be karmikas too must be trained to segregate the garbage they collect," she adds.