Landfills, incineration plants in the City unscientific, says NGO

Members of Solid Waste Management Round Table (SWMRT) on Tuesday said that the landfills and incineration plants in the City were unscientific with multiple side effects.

Speaking on the sidelines of a discussion on 'Bengaluru Garbage Problems', Vani Murthy, a member of SWMRT said, Mandur landfill, Mavallipura, Bingipura and other dumpyards were causing irreparable damage to the people and the environment.

“Unscientific landfills and incineration (waste to energy) plants lead to deterioration in air quality, public health, etc. Every landfill is an environment hazard and the dumpyards have become breeding grounds for dengue, malaria and water-borne diseases” she added.

Uma K, another member of the SWMRT said mixed waste entering landfills is a dangerous phenomenon. Blaming  BBMP contractors and councillors for the mess, she added that the biomethanisation plants need organic waste and most of them were not receiving it.
“The civic agency does not want us to segregate waste. However it is also the responsibility of citizens to hand over segregated waste,” she added.

Referring to the success of ‘2 bin 1 bag’ concept, the members said that the concept encourages people to use colour-coded bins (green for organic waste, red for rejected waste and reusable bag for waste such as plastic, paper among others) to segregate waste and over 80,000 households have adopted it.

Members of SWMRT which works in coordination with the civic agency said they had earlier proposed that the BBMP could make use of cowdung and garden waste from parks to produce compost.

Citizens shared their views and also suggested ways to make the City, garbage-free which included setting up bulk generators, creation of secondary market for garbage, etc during the meet.