A few days ago, a small first step was taken by members of Puttenahalli Neighbourhood Lake Improvement Trust towards a garbage-free Puttenahalli.
Before Cleanup Pic: Arathi Manay Yajaman
There is a spot on Puttenahalli Road, in front of Brigade Millennium Mayflower Block entrance which has been used for dumping. The cleaning up was assisted by the cobbler Chakravarthy who has a shop behind the dump and is also responsible for some of the garbage in the first place and a few others. The rubbish was enough to fill a large sack which was willingly carried away by the garbage truck, to Anjanapura dumping ground. Sidewalk stones that were removed by the BBMP and abandoned on a nearby footpath were placed appropriately and excavated mud from nearby was used to fill the crater. The exercise cost nothing but some dedicated time and a bit of muscle.
Chakravarthy and his wife have taken the responsibility of ensuring that nothing is dumped henceforth. They have put some plants in place to discourage dumping. Some policing is required from residents of the area, those of neighbouring Brigade Millennium in particular.
After Cleanup Pic: Arathi Manay Yajaman
The next step is to take this further, to try and clean up a longer stretch of Puttenahalli Road, and other roads of the area… but this is not going to be easy.
A quick survey and chats with the garbage contractors helps in identifying some of the sources of the rubbish:
– Morning-newspaper agents: The main road serves as the sorting centre for newspaper delivery agents. The plastic sheets and plastic binding tape that are used for packing the newspapers fly around the road, left to be collected by the morning sweepers. The binding tape is a hazard to pedestrians – there are several instances of it getting entangled in people’s feet causing them to trip and fall.
– Vegetable, fruit, tender coconut and flower vendors
– Roadside tea, cigarette, pan stalls and eateries that produce plastic cups, banana peels, gutka packets, leftover food
– Shops: Sweep the shop clean and push the waste onto the road.
– Service providers like barbers, tyre repair, welding, cobbler, etc.
-Site/ home developers: Building debris, carpentry leftovers and the like – dig, demolish and then dump on the road and in storm water drains.
– stray animals like cows, dogs which leave dung and dog poo
– house garbage – some collected by the pourkarmikas and left in piles on the road for the garbage truck to pick up, some left by households. These are the congregating places for dogs, cows, rodents, other scavengers.
And last but not the least garbage on the road, is the one that needs some thought in tackling. Some years ago, BBMP removed the roadside dustbins and replaced them with door-to-door garbage collection. However, it is clear that there is a need for some sort of collection area/container at intervals in our neighbourhoods.
The pourkarmikas are unable/ unwilling to push their trolleys with garbage collected from households for long distances. They have themselves identified spots on the roads/ footpaths where they unload their collected rubbish for the garbage truck to pick up. These spots have no boundary, so the waste, either loose or in bags, gets scattered very quickly before it gets collected by the garbage truck.
As these places seem to be marked as ‘for garbage’, they continue to be used as invisible dustbins by people of the neighbourhood, even after the garbage truck has left for the day, attracting dogs, cows, etc.
Point to note here is that despite having been given separate drums for collecting dry and wet waste, waste is still not segregated in most households. Even if the households to segregate, it is mixed by the pourkarmikas.
So we need to get a plan in place for the pourkarmikas so that they don’t dump on the road or we need to get the roadside dustbins back or find some other way by which our roads are not used as dumps… Some thought required, needs to be worked with the BBMP.
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Making Puttenahalli Garbage freeis a great initiative and is very much doable IMHO. Arathi continues to inspire us. If some of us take responsibility to work with the BBMP, visible results will follow.
Please call for a meeting with other like minded citizens and we shall make this happen. I extend my full support and hope to see more comments on this article from people interested in this effort.
Hi, there.
I really appreciate the efforts & pain taken by the author in bringing about a solution to this menace.
Yes! This stretch starting from gaurav nagar to the arch of brigade millenium is a bloody mess. There are numerous street hawkers, street side food stalls( there is one just opposite mayflower apt) Its called punjabi fast food or something like that. What the guy over there does is he keeps the LPG cylinder on the foothpath!! and continues cooking & situated right above the cylinder is a transformer!
I’ve seen this transformer explode on numerous occasions, the reason for the explosion being the extreme heat generated during cooking.
But was most disturbing was the sight of people( some brigade folks also lol!) flocking to consume this food! In turn blocking pedestrians from walking on the footpath.
( I think the post is too long lol! Maybe I’ll split it up into parts, just goes to show the numerous problems over here at 7th phase!)
…continued
I think Ms Arathi is aware of the fact that roads on either side are NOT asphalted completely & this
footpaths are encroached by flower vendors, coconut etc & this forces people to walk on the road
itself!! And anyone walking towards the north i.e towards putenehalli is not facing the traffic & we all
know the volume of traffic on this stretch.I am damn sure that there is a major accident waiting to
happen. I mean its insane that this guy is getting away with this.
Next is the flower bouquet shop situated besides this illegal eatout.
This is probably half the reason why that this surrounding is so full of filth. I mean is just
unbelievable the kind of garbage his rotting flowers cause. He dumps all of it on the footpath,along
with polythene cover(non bio-degradable BTW) and a slight wind causes it to be scattered all around,
including the surroundings of mayflower.
Then comes the problem of Nilgiris. Not only is are their products hopeless, but also their garbage
disposal method. I find it just disgusting that their staff just pile up their rubbish & just dump it
on to the street & that is done somewhere in the afternoon after the swacha vahana i.e the BBMP dump
truck’s departure & the dump is unattended until the next morning,the time by which street dogs would
have ripped it apart & spewed the mess all over the road. They claim to be a “Green” brand promoting
environmental friendly products, but they do this! The litter they cause is just unbelievable.
The list continues lol. The coconut vendor, the flower vendor beside fresh greens, the other flower
vendor beside the battery shop.
to continue….
…continued
The most distressing part is that this neighborhood comprising of Brigade, RBI Layout folks have turned
a blind eye to this menace & continue to lead lives as though everything is normal. Its not normal for
heaven-sake!!!!!
The only solution to this garbage issue is to make sure that these illegal street hawkers are moved out
of here. They are the source of all filth & litter & no amount of lecturing on this issue will penetrate their thick skull.
Sorry for the long post.Just that I become seriously depressed when I see such nonsense unfolding right
in from of me, especially if it has anything to do with cleanliness,hygiene.
Thanks to Citizen Matters for all their effort to make Bangalore a better place to live in & I am sorta
optimistic that we’ll sort out this ‘bloody mess”of putenehalli, especially when we’ve got people like
Ms Arathi & the commenter above me, Mr Srinivas.
Thanks again.
PS
Is there anyway I can get in touch with you Ms Arathi Manay Yajaman?
I’ve bookmarked this page & will be eagerly awaiting your response.