Residents show the way

Indeed, a few residents have shown the way to dispose garbage with ease and efficiency.

Take the case of Vani Murthy, who stays in a 20-apartment complex. She and other residents of the complex have installed four different dust bins to dump paper, plastic, glass/metal and e-waste. "We have youngsters in our apartment spreading awareness about garbage disposal. They conduct door-to-door campaign.  The children are also creating awareness in their schools,” she explains.

Sandhya, a resident of Brigade Regency says the residents of the 68-apartment complex have been segregating garbage since 2008 and have been doing it quite efficiently.  "We have people from ITC Ltd  who come in regularly and pick paper and plastic. There are others who collect the e-waste.  Whatever is earned from selling is distributed among our housekeeping employees.”

Platinum City, a 700-apartment complex in Yeshwantpur generates an income of about Rs 9,000 per month by selling their paper, plastic and e-waste.  "We have our own sorting centre located inside the apartment where the segregated waste is disposed.  We are separating our garbage for the past three months and doing it very well,” explains a resident.

Meenakshi Bharath, a civic activist and resident of Malleswaram, feels it is high time citizens learn to handle their garbage.  "We need to decentralise the garbage management at ward level and teach every citizen to segregate garbage into wet and dry waste. Once this is done, the rest is easy to handle" she says. 

She has created a compost system in her house to handle the kitchen and wet waste. Like her, many residents of Malleswaram are not only disposing garbage but also earning money by selling them.  They get Rs two for one kilo paper and Rs three for one kilo of plastic that they sell.

A few resident welfare associations have proposed 'dry waste collection centres' in every ward. An RWA member, Ramakantha who has initiated such a dry waste management system informs that places are now available to store the dry waste.

A whopping 3,000 tonnes of garbage is generated in the City every day.

As many as 14,000 personnel are employed to clear the garbage daily.

A total of 270 trucks ferry the garbage from houses to the City’s eight dumping yards