Garbage City to Garden City: NGO's on a mission

Huff, finally I have managed to post my first blog after innumerable reminders from Anand and co :) Let me add on to what Anand has already made a point about waste management and the efforts of various NGOs.
It really hurts to realize that Bangalore, what was once termed as the Garden City is now being termed the Garbage City. What hurts even more is the attitude of the so called educated people with absolutely no civic sense. Even when there is a trash can in plain sight (outside fast-food restaurants, for example), no one bothers to use it. Wrappers are strewn on the sidewalk, banana peels fly out of rolled-down widows of cars, straws are dropped nonchalantly on the streets as are plastic drinking cups, empty sites are promptly co-opted to be garbage dumping sites ("flip that garbage over the fence, no one is watching").It's definitely not the case that Bangaloreans are not clean. They all keep their houses clean, the fronts of their houses clean, their backyards clean. But this attitude towards cleanliness just doesn't translate to keeping the streets clean, keeping the community clean, not dumping garbage in the neighbor's empty site, not dropping garbage on the streets wherever one feels like it. And here I'm talking about people with education and with good jobs. The ones that are supposed to know better.
You speak to them, and they hit back “Why should we bother? The Municipal Corporation will take care of it”. Let’s not debate about whether it’s possible to change the mindset of such irresponsible … (Use whatever term for such people.).
Well, I do agree that there’s a sizable population who do care about the surroundings, the environment, and have civic sense. Most of us know the difference between bio-degradable and non-degradable substance and the ill-effects of non-degradable substances like plastic. What lacks among people is the awareness of how to safely dispose the garbage we generate. The simplest solution is to hand over the garbage to the doorstep garbage collectors. As responsible citizens, we should know that the waste we throw adds up to huge piles outside our cities and therefore polluting our surroundings. Most of the waste is just burnt - expelling toxic waste into the air, or just strewn around at certain places, which are far off from the city - but with current pace of development how far is it gonna go is anyone’s guess! Its time we make a difference – starting from home.


There are a lot of NGO’s, individuals who have put in a tremendous amount of effort to make a difference towards waste management. Below mentioned are just a few of them.

SAAHAS
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Anand has already mentioned about this organization in the previous post.

DailyDump
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http://dailydump.org/us.htm

A novel concept of composting your kitchen waste at home. Hats off to Poonam, the Brain Child of this product, for the amount of effort she has put into this. DailyDump offers a variety of compost pots named Gamla, Patta Kamba, Leave-it pot, Kamba etc for various needs of your home.

The compost that results can be directly added to the plants. No other fertilizer can substitute this manure. You can enjoy watching your plants bear fruits like never before.
I picked up one of the kambas last week and I must say each and every one must pick up one of these. These terracotta pots are so well designed; they can be used as a decorative piece!! Priced at Rs 500 for a non-painted and Rs 600 for a painted, it’s definitely worth it.
All you have to do is put the kitchen waste into these pots and leave them to decompose.

KK Plastics
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Everybody knows the ill-effects of plastic. But what do we do with it? How do we dispose it? Well, Mr K Ahmed Khan has the perfect solution to end this menace. He has come up with the concept of mixing plastics with bitumen to lay roads.
His company KK Waste Management Pvt Ltd [KKWM] now offers Rs 6 per kg of plastic!! Barring rigid plastics, they accept all manner of film waste without the need for sorting. Considering that Bangalore generates 30 MT of waste per month, the potential of the idea to clean up the city is clear. Also, the money will be going into the pockets of our game rag-pickers and housewives. In fact, needing almost 2 MT per km of road laid, KKWM would be running short of waste!!
More on this.. http://www.goodnewsindia.com/index.php/Supplement/article/plastics-recycling-is-out-in-the-streets/P0/

So what next??

Now that we are aware of some of the organizations that work towards waste management, it’s our turn to do our bit. Segregation at source (home) is one of the most important and wish will be followed at every household. Waste can be segregated as
1) Bio Degradable and
2) Non Bio Degradable.

Bio Degradable waste include organic waste, e.g. kitchen waste, vegetables, fruits, flowers, leaves from the garden, and paper.

Nonbiodegradable waste can be further segregated into:a) Recyclable waste – plastics, paper, glass, metal, etc.b) Toxic waste – old medicines, paints, chemicals, bulbs, spray cans, fertilizer and pesticide containers, batteries, shoe polish.c) Soiled – hospital waste such as cloth soiled with blood and other body fluids.Toxic and soiled waste must be disposed of with utmost care.

Lets just make a rough analysis of the kind of waste generated from a household and how we can handle this:
1) Kitchen waste: (Organic and bio degradable).
Kitchen waste contributes more than 50% of the daily waste. Bangalore produces about 3000 tonnes of waste everyday. The centralized government composting plant is capable of handling only about 500 tonnes per day. The rest reaches dumps that are illegal. If each one of us has a composting pot (dailydump) at home, I’m sure there would not be any need for an alternate solution. If you cannot buy one, atleast separate this waste and hand it over to the door-door garbage collector.

2) Newspaper
Now I’m sure nobody would throw away their daily newspapers!!Every1 would definitely find some space, under the cot, on an attic, cupboards, you name it and there will be space to store your old newspapers. This is cos, we have paid for these newspapers and we can gain back at least part of it by selling it to the kabadiwalas or the man who buys old newspapers.

3) Milk/ curds packets
When you can find place to store your newspapers, it should not be hard to store your milk and curd packets too. These too fetch decent money.

4) E-waste like dry cell batteries, electrical wires, non functional electronic/electrical items.
Saahas has a solution to manage your e-waste. They have placed recepticles at various locations in Bangalore. Find one closest to your place and drop them there. (http://www.saahas.org/ewasteprogramme.pdf Page 9).

5) Plastic covers ( Food packaging covers, Shampoo packets etc)
KK plastics pays Rs 6/Kg. If you cannot give it to them atleast hand it over to the nearest kabadiwala.
6) Bottles
PET bottles, glass bottles do fetch money. Hand it over to the nearest kabadiwala.

Apart from these I cant think of anything else that can add to the waste substantially. I really don’t see any reason why one should face problem in segregating their wastes. Now if you are wondering why you should take all this pain in segregating, when the pourakarmikas, or the people who collect the garbage door-door can segregate and in turn sell what ever is valuable, well the truth is they pick up only those items which are of high value and can fetch some decent money (Like PET bottles etc). Most of the other low value wastes which still can be recycled are not picked and find a place in the landfill.
Its time for each one of us to be responsible citizens and spread the word about these NGOs and ACT NOW.