One big rubbish island

Faced with garbage of gargantuan proportions, Palike has the unenviable task of tackling the crisis at hand and planning for future.

The City generates a whopping 4,000 tonnes of garbage every day.

From kitchen waste to plastic covers, toxic waste to e-waste, the stockpile of garbage is nauseating, which the City cannot afford to leave unattended for long.

Yet, over the last few weeks, that is exactly what is happening across Bangalore.

Frantically searching for quick-fix solutions to tide over the immediate crisis, preci­pitated by the closure of three key landfills, the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has no more time left to think for the present and the future simultaneously.

The 80s and 90s had Bangalore in the Palike’s tight control. But the population explosion triggered by the influx of jobseekers in huge numbers over the last 15 years has stretched the Palike’s barely adequate machinery.

That the Palike had the unenviable task of removing 12,000 tonnes of uncleared garbage from different parts of the City on Friday, is an indication of the gravity of the latest crisis. Thoroughly exposed by this telling dirty picture of a wannabe world city is the Palike’s once seemingly adequate solid waste management (SWM) mechanism. 

Closure of the Mavallipura landfill after intense protests by villagers in the vicinity, equally forceful agitations at the Mandur and Terra Firma landfills, with the local MLAs and MPs playing along has put the Palike firmly on the backfoot.

With the stout refusal to take the City’s waste anymore, the villagers were, in effect, bringing to the fore the civic authority’s bankruptcy of ideas and apparent ‘mismanagement’ of the SWM.

Pushed to a corner, the Palike is now exploring a slew of measures at both micro and macro levels, short-term and long-term. While the former BBMP Commissioner Shankarlinge Gowda, ousted in the light of the latest crisis, advised the State government to divide the BBMP into two divisions to avert such problems, the BBMP Council has seriously proposed mandatory segregation of garbage at source.

The new Commissioner, Rajneesh Goel, is to take a decision on this shortly. “The Council has empowered me with the power to decide on two counts. One being the segregation at source and the other is to ensure that the BBMP adheres to the Municipal Solid Waste Management Rules,  2000. We will be looking at this to help us reduce the burden on landfills in the long run,” says Goel.

According to him, the BBMP proposal to ban the use of plastic in the City will also play a major role in managing garbage. “Firstly, the enforcing of a ban on plastic below 40 microns and then the State government’s possible decision on not having plastic usage at all. These decisions will bring down the garbage by 50 per cent,” he points out.

To operationalise ‘segregation at source’, the Palike has decided to join hands with residents’ welfare associations (RWAs) by seeking their support in trying to increase the reach of the Palike. “We will first try to implement the segregation at source in affluent and middle class localities such as Malleswaram and Sadashivanagar. Once they start, we can gauge the possible response in other parts of the City,” says Goel.

On the efforts to mitigate the landfill problems, the BBMP has decided to acquire 212 acres of Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) land in exchange for the prime property of the Kalasipalya bus stand.

The refusal of the MLAs and MPs time and again to accept the City’s refuse in their constituencies, this being an election year, the BBMP’s move to acquire the BMTC land has been seen as a last resort to address the immediate problem.

The BBMP is also looking at viable options of generating power through garbage under the public-private partnership model. Believing this is the best possible strategy, the State government and the BBMP are looking at various types of garbage for power-generation models.

“The government has seen in the past week four presentations by firms interested in generating power from garbage, apart from using the compost as manure,” says Goel.
 
While one company is based in China and another in Japan, two Indian firms — Murugappa Group and V-Group — have evinced interest in generating power from the City’s waste.

But the question still remains as to whether the BBMP’s efforts may be too little too late. Drawing parallels with Surat, which faced a similar garbage crisis in 1995 when it was struck by plague, Bangalore currently is staring down the barrel.

The inspiring fact that Surat, in the year 2012, has been adjudged one of the best cities in the country for its efficient waste management, does however, give hope. So can Bangalore restore its name ‘Garden City’, as opposed to the new nomenclature Garbage City?