Civic sense and garbage clearance

Can Bengaluru restore its moniker ‘garden city’, as opposed to the new nomenclature “garbage city?” Even as you look out from your window in tony localities like Indiranagar or even on the Raj Bhavan road, you can see plastic debris dumped carelessly with rubbish all over the place.

In sheer contrast to people from other societies who are so proud of their cities, as long as our own houses are clean, we are not bothered about the next person. We think nothing of throwing our loaded garbage bags into the neighbours’ compound or quietly jettisoning them onto the pile of “kachara” that is already building up in the middle of the road.

All this was tolerable in the 1980s and 1990s when Bengaluru was under the city corporation’s tight control. But the population explosion triggered by the influx of jobseekers in huge numbers over the last 15 years has stretched the BBMP’s barely adequate machinery.

Today, the city generates a whopping 4,000 tonnes of garbage every day. From kitchen waste to plastic covers, toxic waste to e-waste, the stockpiles of garbage are distressing.

It’s not as if other cities are immune to this phenomenon – only they have confronted the problem properly. Everywhere the basic solution boils down to ensuring segregation and efficient collection from the source.

While mandatory segregation of garbage at source is the first fundamental step, appropriate treatment of the collectibles where bio degradable and non-degradable portions must be properly isolated is next.

The bio degradable portion should be treated in compost pits to convert to organic manure (compost). Polythene, glass and paper — three key elements of the non-degradable portion should be collected and recycled for further use. The remaining waste should be incinerated and used to generate energy. Amsterdam does it; Berlin does it. Nearer home, Indore in Madhya Pradesh has been fairly successful with garbage segregation and collection.

“Amsterdam is a dirty city,” admits an Amsterdam resident. Even Amsterdam’s famed canals look a dull grey with floating bottles and paper debris discarded carelessly. The city’s urban areas struggle with garbage and even the ubiquitous cycles of Amsterdam have glass bottles and garbage thrown carelessly onto their carriers. Land filling is controversial as well because of the nuisance of odour, emission of greenhouse gases, conta­mination of groundwater, explosion risks and the generally un-sightly appearance of the sites.

Amsterdam residents however are effective at recycling their debris by depositing plastic waste in over 200 plastic contai­ners, 1,000 glass containers and 1,400 paper containers that are placed conveniently all over the city, to ensure citizens never ne­ed walk too far for a recycle bin.

Berlin is perhaps one city where you can see a dog owner pick up his doggie’s litter, put it in a bag and throw it into dust bin. German trash handling is a marvel. In homes and around the city, there are separate containers for plastic packaging, glass, paper, organic waste, and for everything else.

Most trash containers have four separate bins for plastic pa­ckaging (yellow); paper (blue); glass (dark green); everything else including organic waste (black). Berlin’s trash collection service has a visible presence and uses a lot of catchy slogans on trash cans and billboards to encourage people to recycle.

The collected organic waste is treated in a biogas fermentation plant that operates on the dry fermentation method where micro organisms from the organic waste generate biogas which is fed into the gas supply to be used as fuel and fertiliser.

Waste-to-energy
Other waste, after the recyclable portions are removed, inspected, weighed and transported to Berlin’s waste-to-energy power station for incineration and conversion to super-heated steam which is used to generate electricity and for heating.

Our own BBMP’s effort to ge­nerate power through garbage under a public-private partnership model was scheduled to be completed by April 2007. However, the Mandur waste project taken up by BBMP and Karnataka Renewable Energy Development Corporation Limited to process 1,000 tonnes of garbage a day and generate 8 MW of electricity is still languishing.

Finally, if we remain uncaring, do not segregate our garbage, and lack basic civic sense, we must be ready to pay the price. In Amsterdam, even rubbish found in unapproved containers is carted off by rubbish police, empowered to inspect garbage. They find the offender’s name and addresses by rifling through their trash and fine them under the free-ranging “exceptional detection rights” stipulated in Amsterdam’s municipal bylaw.

Indore, which generates over 1,000 metric tonnes of garbage a day, is quite successful in ensuring segregation and efficient collection from the source because volunteers rummage through garbage to check who has dumped their trash outside without proper segregation, find the name and address of the person and land up to collect a fine.

We must recognise that

Bengaluru’s problems are not unique — we only need to be prepa­red to drop our mental garbage if we want the ‘garden city’ to become truly “swacch.”

(The writer is Associate Professor, Sai Vidya Institute of Technology, Bengaluru)