The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) is set to convert two
new quarry pits at Mittaganahalli and Bagalur into landfills to dump
waste generated by citizens. The quarry landfill at Mittaganahalli,
where over 2,000 tonnes of mixed waste is currently being dumped every
day from the past year and a half, is almost full.

“We have issued
a tender to develop the Bagalur quarry, less than a kilometre away from
Mittaganahalli into a scientific landfill, which the government is yet
to approve. This will take nearly three months to be developed and made
ready. In the interim, we have prepared a small quarry pit at
Mittaganahalli itself to dump the waste and it can sustain us for six
months,” said Sarfaraz Khan, Joint Commissioner, Solid Waste Management,
BBMP.

Solid
waste management activists are unhappy with the development as the city
administration has adopted a no-landfill policy, committed to
segregation at source, and sustainable waste processing. “Opening up new
landfills over the past four years only indicates the complete failure
to implement the policy the city has adopted,” said an SWM activist.

Not functioning

Of
the six compost-based waste processing plants, three are not
functioning. While Lingadheeranahalli plant has been stuck in litigation
at the National Green Tribunal, Seegehalli and Subbarayanapalya plants
have been shut down owing to protests by local residents. “Segregation
levels in the city have stagnated at around 40% and we are sending
nearly 1,200 tonnes of segregated wet waste to the processing plants
daily,” Mr. Khan said, adding efforts were on to reopen the three other
plants as well.

However, Sandhya Narayan, member of the Technical
Advisory Committee, SWM, BBMP, said complacency had set in. “We have not
added any waste processing capacity in the city since 2015, neither the
large plants nor the decentralised plants. None of the waste-to-energy
plants that have been in the pipeline for nearly a decade now,
materialised. Many proposals for the biomethanation plants at the ward
level have not been accorded approval,” she said, adding there was no
serious push to increase the levels of segregation at source as well.