City: Mumbai

“One life-form turns into another. Recycling is like that,”  says Ramnikbhai Satra, a scrap dealer, as he compares inanimate objects taking on another form to the cycle of death and rebirth. Even as he speaks to me, he keeps an eye on one of his workers weighing newspapers and flattened cartons, answers a customer who wants to know the price of some plastic objects kept in a tray next to which there is a box of glass jars of all shapes and sizes. “Individuals sell this stuff to me. Then it is picked up for recycling by different people— a…

Dharavi has had many distinctions from being Asia's largest slum to being the subject matter of Indian and international movies such as the Oscar winning Slumdog millionaire and scores of fiction and non-fiction books. But amidst all these, it is the people of Dharavi who make it what it is - a settlement spread over 240 acres with countless micro industries from pottery, snacks to leather and garments and more. For decades, the settlement has housed migrants coming to the city to make a living. For decades the settlement has suffered from lack of basic amenities such as sanitation. Located…

You go to a pathologist to run some tests. Your blood is drawn out with a syringe, pressed down with a piece of cotton, and a tape is stuck on it. The needle, the syringe, and the cotton are biomedical waste and need special handling for its disposal. In the second part of our series on solid waste management in Mumbai, we look at specialised waste—waste generated in restaurants, e-waste and biomedical waste. Previously, in the first part we looked at how household waste is disposed and explored various agencies of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) that handle waste. Waste…

The only sense that I could make of the oppressive heat in Mumbai this year, was that maybe the Earth was running a fever. What would you do if someone in your family had a fever? But of course, heatwaves are not the same, they’re in fact, much worse. Science based evidence foresees many more extreme weather events (EWE) like heatwaves. EWEs are triggered by climate change which has been brought on by anthropogenic activities such as deforestation, overconsumption and pollution.  The heatwave that scorched through different parts of India this year was recorded as having some of the worst…

Over nine months, we at Walking Project in Mumbai hosted 25 community walks across various neighbourhoods in the city. In groups of 10–15 people, walking across different neighbourhoods, we discussed walkability, educated citizens about the guidelines which dictate the design of walking spaces nationwide, and advocated for urban planning that prioritises walking, among other topics. One of the key highlights of this initiative was the ranking system we developed for the routes we walked. During each walk, we asked participants to rate their route based on specific walkability criteria. This allowed us to create a ranking of the best and…

As heavy rains lashed Mumbai for days on end, people suffered the impact of climate change once again because of what we call extreme weather events. And as people struggled to commute and get home, the last thing on their minds was to stop and buy their daily supplies of vegetables from the regular vendor. Rarely does one notice, but when monsoons hit Mumbai, the livelihoods of all the stakeholders of the entire supply chain of perishables right from the transporters to the wholesale and retail vendors are affected by rains, exacerbated by climate change.  Impact of climate change on…

I take a delivery of vegetables, remove the vegetables from the plastic bag, and the plastic wrapping. The bag and the wrapping go into the bin, followed a while later with the peels and discarded bits of vegetables. The bin seems forever ready to take in whatever I throw into it: medicine wrappers, sanitary waste, paper, old batteries and so on.  While researching for this series of articles I realised both the quantum and variety of things that we, a household of four, end up throwing in the bin every day, and quite thoughtlessly so. The results: one full bin…

A day before the 19th anniversary of the 26th July deluge, Mumbai recorded the second wettest July ever. Needless to say, the city also witnessed multiple incidents of waterlogging, flooding and disruption in train services and traffic snarls. Some of the explanations for the floods included record heavy rains, climate change, inadequate desilting of drains. There were protests on the ground and outrage on social media.   Incidentally, floods — its causes and solutions in Mumbai — have been studied since 2005, when the biggest and most damaging flood struck Mumbai and claimed 1094 lives after the city witnessed 944.2 mm…

On July 8th, rains lashed Mumbai, disrupting regular life and causing waterlogging and floods in low-lying areas and on important routes. Central Railway officials mention that almost 900 train services were cancelled leaving several commuters stranded, while many BEST buses were diverted. Since then several incidents of heavy rains and flooding have been reported in the city. Commuters, civic activists and residents have questioned the claims made by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) about being prepared for the monsoons.  “The half-constructed, newly-built DP road number 9 in Chandivali was waterlogged, which caused inconvenience to commuters,” said Mandeep Singh Makkar, founder…

The infuriating hit and run Porsche case in Pune, is still on people’s minds, and now another case of hit an run, this time in Mumbai’s Worli, hit headlines, raising serious questions about road safety. Mihir Shah, son of a Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde) leader, is accused of hitting a couple on a scooter and dragging the wife on the bonnet of the car instead of stopping the car, resulting in her death. He has been arrested and sent to judicial custody. Victim’s husband, on a video, said that if the driver of the vehicle had stopped the car, his…