Articles by Pinky Chandran

If you could time travel to the 1800s, how would Bengaluru's lakes and water channels look? This passage from the ‘Deccan Traverses’ by Dilip da Cunha and Anuradha Mathur gives us an idea. ‘The sugarcane and rice crops looked most flourishing in the low wet land under the great tanks, which have all the appearance of natural lakes. Many of these have been most skilfully constructed, giving proof that the natives knew something of engineering, long before English rule and public works were thought of.’ The passage, referring to Bellandur Bund, is from a letter written in 1868 by Mrs…

Mayor R Priya presented the annual  budget  2022-23 for the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) on April 9th 2022. The budgetary allocations for solid waste management are based on the premise of effective segregation on the ground, but what are the present realities?  “Waste Management in Chennai city is much the same as before, in some places people segregate waste and in some gated communities people manage their wet waste using in situ composting. Colour coded bins are the new addition and uniforms have changed. GCC has not been able to enforce the Solid Waste Management Rules 2016”, says P. Natarajan,…

Keys? Check. Wallet? Check. Dry Food, Wet food, Biscuits? Check. Spare Collar? Check. Phone. Check? Anxiety and love, Check? And Priya Chetty Rajagopal is ready to go out on her morning walks around Chalukya Circle, in Bengaluru. First up, time for a daily roll call of all the neighbourhood street dogs – Ringtone, present, Chime, present, 4GMother, present. Then exchange pleasantries, talk gibberish, pet them, feed them till she moves on to the next lane towards the BSNL building.  Priya is part of Canine Squads, a locality-based group of community volunteers who work to ensure both animals and humans are cared…

A lone tempo with jumbo bags hanging from the edges and plastic bags  of mixed waste piled high in the van are a familiar sight  in Bengaluru. Despite the fact that in the last few years, wards that started to use separate vehicles to collect different streams of waste saw much better quality of waste collection. It ensured waste that was easy to recycle did not get sent to landfills or burnt on the wayside. Recently, BBMP said they plan to discontinue sending separate vehicles to collect dry waste and will look at a single vehicle having compartmentalised spaces collecting…

Solid waste management remains the second highest priority for BBMP. Though allocation on this in the 2022-23 budget has dropped to Rs 1469 crore from last year’s allocation of Rs 1622 crore. Changing Priorities - more landfills Much of this money, however, is going towards managing landfills as shown in the chart below. Given the recent developments around the proposed changes to the collection and transportation system of one vehicle collecting all waste streams, the budget reflects the priorities and directions of BBMP moving towards more landfills and dumping by earmarking Rs 300+ crore for this. BBMP SWM budget allocation…

The end of life of textiles is creating a huge cost that no one is bearing right now. Only strict EPR in which textile industries take back or pay for storage or own the end of life costs will this very problematic textile waste be treated in a more sustainable manner. This is the second of a two part series on the mounting textile waste that Bangalore generates and the various issues in disposing-recycling-reusing them. The first part can be read here. The current destinations for textile waste, post sorting at DWCCs are Clothes in wearable conditions are first used by…

The end of life of textiles is creating a huge cost that no one is bearing right now. Only forcing textile industries take back or pay for storage or own the end of life costs will this very problematic textile waste be treated in a more sustainable manner. This is the first of a two part series on the mounting textile waste that Bangalore generates and the various issues in disposing-recycling-reusing them. “There is something about online shopping from home, from the array of choices, not to mention the cheap prices,” says Sheeja, a senior HR Manager who recently relocated to…

There is something about a hill vacation, travelling across narrow winding roads upwards, landscape dotted with lush green terrain, tantalising water streams,  foggy foothills, chirping birds, the buzzing sounds of insects and clean air. But now, contrast this with unsightly scenes of rubbish by the roadside — styrofoam, plastic wrappers, bags  and bottles, and more. The garbage keeps growing, competing with the hills, and becomes a monstrous man-made mountain in the midst of a landfill, laden with grotesque man-made objects that speak volumes about our use-and-throw culture and our complete lack of consideration for the environment. Coorg, nestled in the…

Have you ever looked closely at the plastic packaging waste that you place in your recycling bin? Whether the bags, containers, bottles, wrappers, toys, packaging materials are branded or unbranded? What are the brand names? How are they classified? Do you know what the numbers on the packaging mean? Do all plastic waste actually get recycled? According to Sowmya Raghavan, Member, Solid Waste Management Focus Group, Bangalore Apartment Federation (BAF), “All recyclables are not recycled, and all items in the recycle bin are not recyclable." So have you ever thought about conducting an audit of your plastic waste? If yes,…

In Bengaluru, more than two-thirds of plastic waste comprise household products like personal care and food packaging, dominated by milk packaging (KMF, Dodla, Heritage, Milk Mist etc.), which contributes a big chunk of such waste. The use of plastic packaging material has increased over the years particularly with the growth of e-com companies, with Amazon leading the list. Among product companies, the leading brands which use a lot of plastic material to package their products include Unilever, Coca Cola, Reckitt Benckiser, ITC and Britannia. These are the findings from a plastic brand audit exercise, conducted in September 2021. Hasiru Dala…