bangalore waste disposal

On the occasion of World Environment Day 2018 that had the theme Beat Plastic Pollution, environmental groups led by the Solid Waste Management Round Table (SWMRT), Bengaluru, got together to conduct Waste and Brand Audit in eight locations in Bengaluru. The audit was part of a pan-India activity coordinated by GAIA India, where ten member organisations and partners conducted clean up and waste and brand audits in 18 states of India. In Bengaluru, the Waste and Brand Audit took place on 20th to 22nd May 2018, with over 120 volunteers worked in partnership with groups like HasiruDala, Bangalore Eco Team,…

The Mayor of Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike recently announced a scheme to crush the waste and flush it to sewage drains. Activists and solid waste management enthusiasts are opposing it and petitions are floating around. Why? Not without solid reason. Here is a list of all that is wrong with 'crush-and-flush' approach. 1. It will waste a lot of fresh water for flushing. Each kitchen will need between 10-20 litres of extra fresh water every day to flush down the pulverized food. This is like having four extra full flushes in your toilet, on daily basis! Already Bengaluru has acute…

BBMP’s outsourced garbage contract system failed continuously to deliver and rampant corruption and malpractices the order of the day. Yet the Council has again proposed that the tenders be called for again, supporting the comeback of contractors! As explained in Part 1, the stranglehold of the BBMP Council on the implementation of effective waste management, therefore, still continues, leading to a virtual paralysis in the SWM delivery and implementation. No new SWM proposals have been passed by the Council in the last five months and status quo is being maintained. This is a testimony to the lack of willpower to…

For three years, every attempt to bring in performance-based garbage contracts in Bengaluru have been stymied and the inefficient and corrupt outsourcing work order based contract system continues. Several attempts were made since 2014 to issue performance contracts. But the contractors abstained from bidding, and brought in stays from the court. The Council chose to go with an ad-hoc solution, through the informal arrangements with contractors, called ‘Departmental work order’. The outsourced contract system has failed continuously to deliver the required level of waste management services, while rampant corruption and malpractices galore in managing Pourakarmikas. Finally, the Cabinet took a…

Greenpeace India recently launched its Waste To Food campaign to create awareness about segregation of waste and composting of organic matter among the citizens of Bengaluru. With the population of nearly 10 million, Bengaluru produces between 3,000 tonnes to 5,000 tonnes of garbage every day of which around 60 percent is  organic waste. To kickstart the campaign, activists from Greenpeace India placed placards with the message 'Waste To Food'  at five locations across the city where unsegregated garbage is being dumped unceremoniously at public spaces. “The city deserves better, and the authorities need to pay immediate attention. While there are…

We launched the crowdsourced Blackspot Mapping Project (garbage dump mapping project) in the last week of August, 2016. Two weeks into the project, we are already nearing 200 spots. As we reached out to people for help, we also faced many questions: Why are you doing this? What’s the intent? What will this data be used for? So many apps to map garbage and other issues - why should we contribute data to this project? In this article, we try to explain it all in detail. Why are you doing this? What’s the intent? Our cities suffer from multiple problems.…