Corporate honchos get garbage 'vishwaroopa' darshan

For corporate honchos, celebrities and pen pushers who constantly sigh at BBMP’s inability to ‘solve’ the garbage disposal problem in Bangalore, it was an eye-opener: It’s a mammoth problem which will not disappear easily.

A three-hour-long tour of some of the waste collection and segregation centres, gigantic landfills and a compost unit, accompanied by BBMP officials led by its Commissioner Siddaiah, gave a glimpse of the challenge that the generation of 4,000 tonnes a day poses in the capital City.

The team began with a visit to the biogas plant at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIM-B) on Bannerghatta Road that produces nearly 16 kilograms of fuel daily from the waste generated within the campus. The next stop was a large semi-open storage of a scrap dealer who efficiently segregates ‘valuable’ waste, sells it for a profit and crushes the rest of the garbage into manageable slabs.

V Ravichander of Feedback Consulting, who organised the visit along with City Connect, pointed out the need for BBMP to empanel such scrap dealers to create a network of people for garbage disposal. Since high value garbage anyway got recycled, it was essential to incentivise the disposal of lower value garbage.  

Speaking at a dry waste recycling plant at Gottigere in Kempanahalli, Vinita Bali, managing director of Britannia Ltd, talked about her company’s involvement in recycling dry waste. On the importance of such plants, she said that Tamil Nadu had two plants that run on polymer fuels. Materials for the fuel came mainly from plastic wrappers. “Even if you offer a small incentive for plastic bags to be deposited at a collection centre, nobody will throw such bags on roads,” she noted.

The Palike officials who were part of the team, said the BBMP currently had 51 dry waste plants, while another 60 plants were under construction. Bangalore Connect Convener Kalpana Kar, during the visit to a landfill at Lakshmipura, said: “Landfills such as this emitting thick smoke and producing unbearable stench have low value waste. It needs to be separated further to draw value.”

The team also visited the Karnataka Compost Development Corporation (KCDC) at Singasandra in Kudlu, which has been producing compost manure for over three decades. The KCDC campus, which stopped receiving garbage in 2006 after its storage swelled to over 12 lakh tonnes, has been promised additional land and more machinery to improve its capacity.

The BBMP along with Bangalore Connect is organising a week-long expo, named “Wake Up Clean Up Bengaluru” from February 3 to 10 at Freedom Park for various stake-holders like bulk producers of waste, industries, hoteliers and apartment owners. During the event which will be addressed by experts, there will be debates on finding innovative and concrete solutions to the garbage menace in the City. The event is open to general public.