garbage

In May 2014, the residents of Casa Ansal, disgusted with the garbage piling up on their side walls, had called on the help of the Ugly Indian, and had this clean-up drive that I had written about: Garbage cleaning at Casa Ansal. The ditch was covered with granite slabs and the wall completely painted. Six months later, the wall continues to be clean, and the footpath walkable (except for the place behind the transformer at the Bannerghatta Road end where the autorickshaw wallahs insist on continuting to relieve themselves.)  So...I am posting this photo of the place as it is…

The garbage problem in Bangalore seems to be too high a mountain (literally) to climb! Can we afford to let things slide till we are sucked into a vortex of crisis? Do we need to face a plague epidemic, as Surat did some decades ago, before we wake up? What can we, as citizens of Bangalore do, to solve the apparently unsolvable issue? Let us look at the three major aspects of the problem. First, garbage generation. If we don't generate so much garbage, we would not have to face the problem. How do we generate less garbage? The 'wet…

There's a road very close to my home, which thousands of commuters use every day. As roads go by, it is nothing special--not extra wide or four-laned or nicely tarred, even. It's just a linking road, a few hundred metres in length. A redeveloped slum dominates one end of it; at the other are some indistinguishable homes, a few small businesses and the local Bescom office. Pedestrians invariably have a tough time navigating this road, especially the part that goes past the slum. For there is always traffic whizzing past, children playing about, running helter skelter unmindful of the vehicles…

Part 1 of Chapter 11: Steal Proofing Part 2 of Chapter 11: Installing garbage bins can be a design challenge for city planners! Part 3 continues... Before and after photo of a spotfix in Banaswadi. Pic: The Ugly Indian X took some photos of the Spot, got them printed at another Spot neighbor, Tru-Images, a digital studio down the road, and created a small portfolio of five photos – one photo of “Before”, one photo of “After” and three photos of “During SpotFixing” (featuring the Wipro employees, the drivers, and Veliyamma). The studio owner was very happy to see the…

Part 1 of Chapter 11: Steal Proofing Part 2 continues... These are the realities of the Indian street that are often ignored by city planners and those who want a better city. Seemingly simple things that work overseas (like trash cans) don’t work well in India. McDonald’s tried its best on Brigade Road, Bangalore – and installed some 30 large fibre-glass dustbins, costing about Rs 2,000 ($40) each, and branded with their Golden Arches logo. They lasted barely a few weeks. Some were vandalized, some caught fire from tossed cigarette butts, many were stolen, and soon none were left. Many…

Join your fellow citizens of India at "India Clean Sweep, 8 June 2014" at Yelahanka Puttenahalli Lake. 'India Clean Sweep' is an initiative by Chennai Trekking Club, to save our waters and other natural spaces from garbage and plastic. In association with Yelahanka Puttenahalli Lake and Bird Conservation Trust, Citizens Forum Yelahanka New Town, Prayukti and The Hindu, the event in Yelahanka is intended to to drive home a strong message to save our natural inheritance. For more details, contact Balaji Mohan +91 8123262526 / Rakshit +91 9916173814.  

X and V are not finished yet. The basic rescue act is over and the initial impact has been made. Their mission is to find a permanent solution to a decades-old problem, not just beautify a street corner for a feel-good photo-op. It would be a failure if the dump just shifted to the next orphan spot, to the next point of least resistance. V & X are very conscious of this, and have worked out a plan. For a start, they have made friends with all the security guards in the area. All commercial areas have security guards – who are…

Monday morning, 950am Damn – why is the bus stuck here for so long at Mekhri Circle today?I had left home at 9am with the intention of reaching the Spot by 10am, but looks like I will reach only by 11. Bangalore has this brand new bus system, the G-10, that has made commuting from far-flung suburbs to city centre so much easier. But it seems like everything collapses when a VIP is in town, as all the main roads of Bangalore leading to the airport are blocked this morning. This is ridiculous – why should the overcrowded city be…

The residents of Casa Ansal, in J P Nagar 3rd Phase on Bannerghatta Road, have been suffering from the shifting of the trash area from the Mini-Forest area to their southern wall, where it was both an eyesore and a major health hazard. On the morning of the 17th of May, with the help of The Ugly Indian   a group dedicated to clean-ups, the residents took up the cleaning of the area. ' The cleaning program was announced on the Casa Ansal FaceBook group, and several volunteers turned up to help.     Two garbage lorries were positioned, one…

  I had seen V & X for the first time on Thursday, the day before their ‘hit’. I was walking down Church Street after a coffee at Koshy’s and was heading towards Blossom Books, when I saw these two guys photographing this ugly garbage pile outside the Times of India building. One of them was literally standing in the pile and holding up a shopping bag he had extricated from the dump, and the other was photographing it.  I did look at them but did not stop – assuming they were from the media; the city’s garbage woes are…