Pollution

Last month, BBMP started deploying SWM (Solid Waste Management) Marshals to check littering, garbage dumping etc and penalise offenders under the new SWM Bye-laws. The Marshals booked 1129 cases in September, issuing steep penalties under the new bye-laws. This, along with 774 cases booked for the plastic ban, earned BBMP over Rs 14 lakh in fines that month. Now, BBMP is planning to provide handheld devices to the Marshals, to enable them to issue digitally-printed challans to offenders on the spot. Speaking to Citizen Matters, D Randeep, Special Commissioner (SWM) at BBMP, said that predefined fines for each offence would be…

In a first-of-its-kind development, private city buses in Mangalore have started making a beeline to receive biofuel made out of Used Cooking Oil (UCO) from restaurants. Biofuel researchers here are set to create a unique ecosystem for disposing hazardous UCO while also creating an eco-friendly fuel for transportation fleet. The coastal district has over 100 medium to large scale eateries, and 360 private buses plying the routes. Eight years ago, the Government of Karnataka had mooted the creation of 27 to 30 biofuel research information and demonstration centres in the state. This included a unit in Nitte village, Udupi District,…

Sarsa, a small river that flows through Himachal Pradesh and Punjab, is considered a holy river in Sikh religious tradition. It was on the banks of Sarsa that Guru Gobind Singh’s Khalsa Army fought the Mughals. Though the Khalsa army lost that battle, its effect was far reaching. It led to Guru Gobind Singh’s separation from his family and the martyrdom of the Guru’s four children. To avenge their deaths, Banda Bahadur, a disciple of Guru Gobind Singh who was especially sent by the Guru to avenge the martyrdom of his children, laid the foundation of a professional Khalsa Army, which…

In roughly a week from now, the city of Kolkata will be transformed into a spectacular carnival, a moving stream of countless heads, as tens of thousands descend on its roads to celebrate Durga Puja. In the capital Kolkata, this marks a magical celebration of not only the homecoming of Goddess Durga and her four children – Lakshmi, Saraswati, Kartik and Ganesh -- but of art, creativity and life itself.  During the festival spanning five-days, Kolkata is decked up like a bride. ‘Pandals’, which look more like film sets these days, pop up across the city, where devotees will seek…

Nowhere around the world do residents pay to get killed - not even in the worst mafia or terrorist-infested city. Correction - there is one city. Known earlier as pensioners’ paradise, garden city, and then IT city, it is now ‘garbage city’. Residents here fall ill and die because the taxes they pay for ‘services’ like garbage removal deliver nothing in return. A news report in Deccan Herald this August 15th said, '563 new dengue cases in four days', and 5006 cases overall since January. This translates to over 600 cases per month, or 20 per day. The dengue-causing Aedes…

Picture this: No jet black smoke from vehicles. No constant noise from engines. No toxic carbon-laden air to choke your lungs as you walk along a city thoroughfare. It might sound Utopian now, but if there is a boom in electric mobility, this ideal could well become reality on Chennai roads. One of the first steps towards that has been by a private auto service provider, Makkal Auto, which rolled out the city’s first electric auto last week (August 25), . The initiative has garnered appreciation from Chennaites for two reasons: one, electric autos would reduce emissions and pave the…

There are indications that air pollution is contributing to premature deaths from cardiovascular disease in people under 40, said Dr Rahul Patil, interventional cardiologist at the Jayadeva Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences and Research. Dr Patil was speaking at the India Clean Air Summit 2019 (ICAS19). “Inhalation of particulate matter is leading to thickening of blood, with patients often showing clinical behaviours of a smoker although they are non-smokers,” he said. ICAS19 was hosted by the Centre for Air Pollution Studies, CSTEP, in partnership with the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB) and the state government's Department of Forest, Ecology and…

Globally, air pollution reduces life expectancy by one year and eight months, on average. This loss ranks just below smoking, but above unsafe drinking water and lung cancer (State of Global Air report, 2019). Emissions from increasing vehicular population, and residential and commercial activities, are polluting even the air far from the source, and affecting the health of millions of people. Lack of scientific methods to assess pollution, inadequate data and analysis have further hampered policy efforts to improve air quality in Indian cities. The Center for Study of Science, Technology and Policy (CSTEP), a leading research-based Indian think tank,…

Many apartment complexes and layouts in Bengaluru have large gardens with flowering plants and trees. A lot of yellowing or dry leaves fall to ground everyday in such gardens, and these are swept away regularly. Hedges are also routinely pruned to maintain aesthetic appeal. This generates significant amounts of garden waste. Many complexes dispose off garden waste to tractor operators, who pick it up, assuring it would be dumped in approved sites. Though these operators charge stiff prices, no one knows where they ultimately deposit the waste. I would like to highlight a better, responsible way of handling garden waste, based on…

Across Bengaluru, apartments have been popping up like mushrooms over the years. This poses several challenges to the city, including waste management. Though BBMP (Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike) has introduced many rules that require apartments to manage their own waste, not all apartments follow these. Some apartments face practical difficulties such as lack of space or the heavy investment needed to install a composting unit. The poor management of waste affects not just apartment residents, but all citizens. But the solution could be quite simple. Back in the olden days, people used to segregate and compost their wet waste - mainly…