he Hindu      15.10.2014  

Segregation of waste at source is the key

The Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike’s plan to reopen Mavallipura
landfill is facing opposition from neighbouring village residents.— File
Photo: G.P. Sampath Kumar

Solid waste management situation in the city is a
ticking bomb with Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) obligated to
discontinue dumping of city’s waste at Mandur from December 1.

With
just 45 days away, the six new garbage processing units on the city’s
outskirts that are to take the burden away from Mandur, are yet to
become operational. It is a hard battle to get all these six units
completely operational by December 1, officials concede, raising fears
over the units getting converted into dumping yards.

The
six garbage processing units are outsourced to private companies and
are to convert wet waste into compost. Earlier experiment of
waste-to-energy that failed has been done away with now.

BBMP
officials claim that these processing units coming up have technology
to segregate waste. However, they add that as around 40 per cent of the
waste is dry waste, segregating it at the unit would also lead to
additional costs and segregation at source was the best option out.

Waste
management experts aver that key to the success of any processing unit
is segregation of waste. However, segregation of waste at source has
woefully failed in Bangalore, both due to systemic neglect and lack of
response from citizens.

While BBMP’s waste
segregation campaign at source failed, no further campaign to educate
the public on segregation has been taken up. Experts point out that BBMP
does not have in place a system to ensure segregation and collection of
segregated waste.

Meanwhile, BBMP’s plan to reopen
Mavallipura is facing opposition, especially from residents in 12
villages around the landfill site. Village residents have been
protesting against BBMP as the leachete had polluted the groundwater.

Karnataka
State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB) has put brakes on BBMP’s revival
plans, which are yet to be cleared by the Airport Authority of India
since the landfill site is close to Kempegowda International Airport in
Devanahalli

However, despite all assurances and
promises to tackle the situation, citizens now are left wondering if the
civic authority will be able to handle the imminent crisis.

‘Short-sighted’

Experts have complained the government was being short sighted and just spreading the Mandur crisis to six different locations.

Ashwin
Mahesh from Loksatta Party questioned why the city’s waste was being
taken out of Bangalore. “If the processing units were so safe, why are
they being set up on the city’s outskirts?” he asked. The crisis cannot
be resolved until the only solution was to take the garbage out of the
city, he said and added that decentralisation of garbage processing was
the only viable solution.

BBMP officials claim that
there are plans to establish processing unit in each Assembly
constituency now that BMTC is all set to hand over 223 acres of its land
to the civic authority.

Reporting by

K.V. Aditya Bharadwaj

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