Bangalore struggling with its growing pile of garbage

Bangalore: Bangalore, once known as the Garden City, its residents now mockingly refer to it as garbage city, and with good reason. The city is struggling with its growing pile of daily waste, a whopping 5000 tonnes and there is no space to dump it.

It's a problem that has been raising a stink in Bangalore for the past two months. The IT city is struggling with growing piles of daily waste. A feverish hunt is on for hundreds of acres of land to dump 5000-odd tonnes of garbage generated daily. In an effort to make things easier, the civic body has decided to make segregation of recyclable and non-recyclable waste mandatory.

Mayor, Bangalore City Venkatesh Murthy said, "Those who don't follow this, whether it be public contractors or officials they'll be fined. Fines will be implemented from three months of the deadline being set."

In an effort to make things easier, the civic body has decided to make segregation of recyclable and non-recyclable waste mandatory.

The deadline for starting garbage segregation will be October 1 for commercial establishments and December 1 for residential apartments. But how to implement the idea? Madan Kumar, a consultant for NGOs, says every responsible Bangalorean should pitch in.

"We looked at the overall garbage spectrum of what constitutes of garbage in our waste and we discovered that if we started composting on site and segregating within the household segregating wet and dry waste, the garbage outflow gets reduced by 50-60 per cent," Kumar said.

One of the Bangalore city resident said, "I think we have to segregate wet and dry so that we can keep Bangalore clean and they can really make this a garden city."

"I think it's a better option if the BBMP does it themselves because they are the ones who came up with the idea and couldn't pull it off. How can they expect common people to do it on their own?" another Bangalore resident said.

Critics say the civic body hasn't done enough to educate residents on garbage segregation and there is no infrastructure in place to support it. Here's hoping that it doesn't turn out to be another ill conceived idea.

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