Reuse is a concept that is attached to the Indian psyche. Well at least if you were born at any point in time before 1980. However common area cleanliness and an awareness to waste that we are creating is something that is not. That is a tad harsh but not too far from the truth. Currently, Bangalore is estimated to produce around 2200 tons of garbage per day (unofficial data from various online reports). The process of disposing this garbage is at best unclear.
This Janaagraha site describes Bangalore being divide into 297 health wards, 115 of them being managed by the BMP through its employees and the remaining 182 are tendered and contracted privately for collecting and transporting garbage. According to this report in The Hindu , Mavallipura, Kaveripatna and Garvebavipalya are three dumping sites designated by the BBMP (Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagar Palike). In this recent article in the Deccan Herald Article the BBMP is planning to introduce GPS on garbage trucks so as to ensure collection and proper payments. Another article in The Hindu also claims that BBMP is going to generate power from garbage by burning them. This Bangalore Blog laments the poor garbage disposal facilities, including landfills not being adequate and they were former quarries. I can myself testify to this fact that many private contractors dump garbage on any of the following sites:- properties that are under dispute, lake beds, storm water drains, street corners etc. Infact if you venture into a new construction site, where land has been left vacant for about 5 years and garbage is being dumped on and off there, one will notice that there is a surfiet of plastic and “trash” upto four to five feet depth.
There is also a “Karnataka Compost development Corporation” which has several composting sites near the landfills mentioned above and elsewhere. Here garbage is segregated to the best of the ability (or not at all) and left to compost. Composting is not close to complete at all. It is estimated that 30% of compostable garbage gets composted. This is despite having a substantial number of folks, who work as rag pickers sifting through garbage mounds for plastic bags and such.
That leaves us with the disposal of hazardous waste and these need to be further treated before it can be thrown out as garbage. Most countries have laws that ask various automotive mechanic shops, hospitals and other such entities to follow through on certain treatment procedures before throwing them out. I could not find any real leads on how these are handled by the BBMP, though found many links lamenting the need for a sound policy on such matters and this article pointing out the need for a scientific disposal of medical waste. Recently e-waste has gotten some attention and Sahas is one of the groups that has an e-waste disposal programme in Bangalore. Bangalore also has this “plastic road” idea but am not sure how environmentally friendly the process is. There are also items now coming into the market outside these laws. This blog on CFL bulbs has a dicussion on its safe-disposal.
Vijaya Shukre in this Jantar Mantar article, a magazine brought out by IIT Madras, illustrates the idea of composting and seggregating and has the following interesting table on time to bio-degrade:–
| Item | Time to Bio-degrade |
| Cotton rags | 1-5 months |
| Paper | 2-5 months |
| Orange peels | 6 months |
| Cigarette butts | 1 to 5 years |
| Plastic-coated paper milk cartons | 5yrs |
| Leather shoes | 25 to 40 years |
| Nylon fabric | 30 to 40 years |
| Tin cans | 50 to 100 years |
| Glass bottles | 1 million years |
| Plastic bottles | FOREVER |
Environment Canada has a nice posting on how to The 4 R’s :- Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, and Recover and so does this blog on garbage processing.
Where does this leave the individual citizen ? We all generate garbage on a regular basis. I checked on my regularity :- on an average it is a shocking every half an hour of waking time. That is atleast every half an hour of the time I am awake, I have some form of trash to dispose off:– scrap paper, envelope, little food item or a soiled plastic bag etc. This is not to mention the human waste we all create, that is a different topic altogether. The good news amongst all of the above is that it is possible to minimise the damage a great deal. Given the lack of government will in this direction several small efficient groups/corporations have sprouted in Bangalore to deal with solid waste.
Daily Dump is one such group with the key objective of making waste useful. They sell individual composting units that you can set up in your flat or house provided you have some open area or balcony which you do not hang out in.
We have installed the three set pot called “khamba”. As long as you use dry leaves, the organic compost accelerator powder and the neem mixture regularly the system works fine. If the pot is too wet then there is the proverbial invasion of your house by harmless young walking maggots. When the composting is done I usually go and dump the resulting manure under some tree in the locality. To reduce the smell effect there is a lemon grass spray that one can use. With over 700 customers in Bangalore, The Mint features them with a very upbeat title ” Don’t bin the waste pot it”.
One of the most pleasant features of this is that the reduction of plastic bags used for garbage. We put out only one bag a week to go into the common pool of garbage, collected by a private contractor. This bag contains soiled plastic bags, paper, sweeping dust waste and other non-reuse recycle waste. In the process it has also become easy for us to seggregate dry waste as well. Once a month or so there is a small shop which collects old newspaper, plastic bags + scrap plastic, glass bottles etc.
If you live in a complex and you do not want to do inhouse seggregation then you can get yourself a mechanical compostor such as this one.
It converts organic waste into compost using electrical energy.
Waste wise trust is another group that works in this area. As long as you seggregate your waste into dry and kitchen waste they ensure that all the garbage is disposed off in an environmentally friendly manner. They work with many complexes in Bangalore and have a socially conscious employment scheme as well.
Creating less waste and disposing of created waste properly is a thought that needs to be internalised, at least by me. Otherwise we will soon have a serious problem of plastic choking our lands, waste polluting our ground water and rivers.
