Waste Management

https://soundcloud.com/citizenmatters/ep1-lessons-from-bengaluru-cm If you live in Bengaluru, you just cannot avoid the city's waste management problem. Footpaths that are stinking and littered with waste are a common sight. This first episode of 'Lessons from Bengaluru' podcast series explores Bengaluru's waste management problem, and what citizens are doing to address it. Sandhya Narayanan of the Solid Waste Management Round Table (SWMRT) describes how the city's rapid growth from the early 2000s worsened the waste management problem. SWMRT has played a key role in identifying solutions to the issue and holding civic authorities accountable. Lalitha Mondreti, also part of SWMRT, explains the 2…

Today, as the entire world is fighting the war against COVID-19, one debate has constantly risen. How will the developing world shape up over this period? One thing has clearly emerged as our cities and systems fight this pandemic: we need better sanitation services – both solid and liquid waste management as much as we need effective health care systems. By 2050, two thirds of us will live in cities. However, our urban centres are grappling with the effects of our current take-make-waste economy. Under this linear system, cities consume over 75 per cent of natural resources, produce over 50…

RJ Usha from Radio Active 90.4 MHz speaks to Mohammed Imran, a worker from the Dry Waste Collection Centre (DWCC) at Ward No 123, on problems related to waste collection and segregation during lockdown. It's been over a month since the lockdown began, but Imran says that door-to-door waste collection has been going on as usual. Several workers at Imran's DWCC have been absent from work as they live in Bapuji Nagar ward which has been completely sealed off. Hence the collected waste is not being segregated on time. This, along with the difficulty in transporting waste from the DWCC,…

Used masks, gloves and tissues are hazardous sanitary waste, but most Bengalureans are not segregating these. Pic Credit: Radio Active 90.4MHz The movie Contagion’s grim visuals of uncollected garbage lining deserted streets haunts me, as I consume media reports about increasing COVID-19 cases. The lesson from 1918 flu pandemic was a mirror image of the movie Contagion as the flu did not differentiate between class. Waste Management and people who work in and with waste are extremely vulnerable, so how do we draw up a framework to fortify systems, sensitise citizens and protect frontline workers?  Challenges are varied depending on…

The residents of Electronic City, which is not even within BBMP limits, are becoming guinea pigs for the Palike’s misguided attempts at ‘scientific waste management’. BBMP has signed an agreement to set up an incineration-based Waste-to-Energy (WtE) plant at Chikkanagamangala, a stone's throw away from Electronic City. Problems with the existing plant The project is coming up at a site that currently houses a composting plant running under BBMP’s direct supervision. This plant processes wet waste from 44 BBMP wards. Operational since May 2018, it soon led to stench and fly menace in the locality. Last July, the National Green…

With a spike in positive cases being reported across the country, India is working towards containment of COVID-19 on a war footing. The number of COVID-19 positive patients across India breached 22,000 mark with more than 700 deaths. (as on 23rd April, 21:30 PM) The National Health Profile of 2019 indicates that among the various major communicable diseases reported in 2018 across India, acute respiratory diseases had the highest share of cases. Experts suggest that people with medical conditions such as respiratory illness are at high risk of developing serious complications related to COVID-19. This suggests that our population is…

Sivaraman*, (name changed) a conservancy worker, was on regular duty last month, collecting garbage in Chrompet. Just as he was handling some 'household waste' collected from a clinic in the locality, a syringe pricked his finger. "I could not bend my finger as it seemed to have been numbed by some traces of anaesthetic still present. I reported it to my head and the doctor from the clinic was warned. They were asked to dispose of bio-medical waste according to the rules,” the worker said. This, however, is not a one-off incident in Chennai. Improper disposal of bio-medical waste is…

In the last couple of months, many apartment complexes in Bengaluru got notices from the state Pollution Control Board (KSPCB), asking them to pay a penalty of Rs 5 lakh, for discharging untreated sewage outside their premises. Many of these apartments were already running Sewage Treatment Plants (STPs), and these were functioning well as per routine lab tests that the apartments used to get done. So, the apartments wrote to KSPCB instead of paying up. But the Board did not respond to the residents’ concerns. Instead, it issued them a ‘show cause’ notice, mentioning that they hadn’t paid the fines…

It has been almost five months since ward marshals were appointed in the city to prevent public littering, but the piling up of garbage in places other than the designated ones raises questions about how effective the move has been. On its part, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) holds that violations have come down after marshals started patrolling the wards. The BBMP managed to convince the state government to appoint 232 marshals, to prevent random littering of streets, lakes, Indira canteens, landfills and other public spaces, at a cost of Rs 8.51 crore. Ward marshals were deployed from September,…

Translated by Madhusudhan Rao ಬೆಂಗಳೂರಿನಲ್ಲಿ ಎಲ್ಲರೂ ರಸ್ತೆಗಳಲ್ಲಿನ ಕಸದ ರಾಶಿಯನ್ನು ನೋಡಿ ಅಸಹ್ಯಿಸಿಕೊಳ್ಳುವವರೇ. ಬಿಬಿಎಂಪಿ ತ್ಯಾಜ್ಯವನ್ನು ವಿಲೇವಾರಿ ಮಾಡಿದ ನಂತರ ಎಲ್ಲರೂ ನೆಮ್ಮದಿಯ ನಿಟ್ಟುಸಿರು ಬಿಡುತ್ತಾರೆ. ಆದರೆ ಕಸ ಎಲ್ಲಿಗೆ ಹೋಗುತ್ತದೆ? ಸರ್ಕಾರ ಬೆಂಗಳೂರಿನ ಕಸದ ದುಃಸ್ಥಿತಿ ಸರಿಪಡಿಸಲು ಒಂದು ಧಿಡೀರ್ ಪರಿಹಾರ ಸೂಚಿಸಿದೆ - ದಿನಕ್ಕೆ ಒಟ್ಟು 2100 ಟನ್ ತ್ಯಾಜ್ಯವನ್ನು ನಿರ್ವಹಿಸುವ ಸಾಮರ್ಥ್ಯ ಹೊಂದಿರುವ ಐದು ಕಸದಿಂದ ವಿದ್ಯುತ್ ತಯಾರಿಸುವ (“ವೇಸ್ಟ್-ಟು-ಎನರ್ಜಿ” ಅಥವಾ ಡಬ್ಲ್ಯೂಟಿಈ / WtE) ಘಟಕಗಳು. ಅನೇಕರು ಅಂದುಕೊಳ್ಳಬಹುದು - ವಾಹ್, ಕಸದಿಂದ ವಿದ್ಯುತ್! ಎಂಥ ಅದ್ಭುತ ಪರಿಕಲ್ಪನೆ! ಒಂದೇ ಏಟಿಗೆ ಎರಡು ಹಕ್ಕಿ ಹೊಡೆದ ಹಾಗೆ! ಆದರೆ ಇದು ಖಂಡಿತ ತಪ್ಪು. ಇದಕ್ಕೆ ಐದು ಕಾರಣಗಳು ಇಲ್ಲಿವೆ: ಭಾರತದಲ್ಲಿ ಉತ್ಪತ್ತಿಯಾಗುವ ತ್ಯಾಜ್ಯಕ್ಕೆ ಡಬ್ಲ್ಯುಟಿಈ ಘಟಕಗಳು ಸೂಕ್ತವಲ್ಲ “ಆದ್ರೆ ಸ್ವೀಡನ್, ಸಿಂಗಪುರ್ ಮತ್ತು ಜಪಾನ್ ಗಳಲ್ಲಿರುವ ಡಬ್ಲ್ಯುಟಿಈ ಘಟಕಗಳನ್ನು ವಾಟ್ಸಾಪ್ಪ್ ವಿಡಿಯೋನಲ್ಲಿ ನಾನು ನೋಡಿದೀನಿ - ಈ ದೇಶಗಳಂತೆಯೇ ಆಧುನಿಕ ತಂತ್ರಜ್ಞಾನವನ್ನು ನಾವೂ ಏಕೆ…