BBMP launches survey to identify bulk waste generators

The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has started a survey to identify bulk waste generators (who generate more than 100 kilos of waste a day) in the city. It has already marked 3,200 such generators.

While apartment complexes are among the major generators, community halls, malls, and IT Tech parks make up the others.

The BBMP had in April notified the rules for waste management in such institutions and had mandated in-situ management wherever possible.

However, till date, the civic body did not have a complete database to track these generators to ensure they dispose of the waste in the right manner.

“It is a preliminary survey to identify the bulk waste generators and how many of them have the infrastructure to install in-situ waste management plants. Once the preliminary survey is complete, we will go into a detailed survey to advocate in-situ processes and make sure they are set up,” said Dr Harish Kumar, BBMP Special Commissioner(SWM).

According to senior BBMP officials, though in-situ management is the priority, BBMP also plans to introduce community management and allow decentralised plants to operate in case there is a lack of space in these complexes.

However, bulk generators, especially representatives of apartment complexes, opined that the BBMP officials should chalk out the details before enforcing the mandate.

“We agree that we need to take responsibility for the waste we generate. However, the complete process has not been well-defined. For instance, an apartment complex generating 100 kg of wet waste a day will produce one and a half tonne of compost a month, if in-situ processing is followed. The BBMP has not laid out details on how such huge quantities of compost have to be managed,” said Vikram Rai, General Secretary of Bangalore Apartments’ Federation.