Challenges of Residential Solid Waste Management in Bengaluru – A Citizen Perspective

Waste Management is always a hot-button issue anywhere, especially in the metros. Bengaluru is no exception. The problems are for all to too – lack of waste segregation, dumping in and around the city (the latter is when we dump stuff around the homes of the underserved, and now it is being increasingly resisted, the ever-evolving and often conflicting regulations by the municipality (BBMP in our case), and sure enough they don’t solve much, and overall sense of helplessness.

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There is often a narrative, that citizens don’t care and add to the problem.

?Today I want to challenge that with the decade-plus-old challenges faced by our housing society (with 800+ dwelling units and around 3,000 residents) to be good citizens, and our mixed (or rather negative experience). But first the basics:

Bengaluru produces 5,000 tonnes of waste every day. A large part of it comes from its 12 million residents, what we call household waste.

?Bengaluru has also evolved as a city of apartments and layouts. It is estimated that over 5,000 such entities with each having more than 300 units each exist. Given that approximately 20% city population stays there, and the residents are relatively aware and affluent, there is a focus always on having better waste management in these residential entities.

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Purva Riviera, the layout where we stay, is one of the first mega multi-unit residential entities in Bengaluru, and we have been a pioneer in trying to comply with what is expected of good citizens.

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Before we get into what we did, we must understand what Solid Waste means for a residential complex.

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There are broadly five categories of waste and what we plan to do with them:

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Category 1 - Kitchen Wet?waste?or Organic waste, Compostable:

This includes primarily Kitchen?Waste?e.g. vegetable peels, leftover food, etc. This is compostable locally and can be converted into organic manure. In a well-managed residential waste management system, it should not go out of the boundary.

?Category 2 - Dry Waste?- Non-Compostable: This includes napkins, nappy pads, broken glass, other organic disposables, etc. These can’t be recycled, or reused, and have to be sent out, to go to either the landfills or to be processed industrially for alternate use.

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Category 3 - Recyclable dry?waste: This included paper, bottles, milk pouches, plastic bags, tetra packs, etc. This can be sold to specialized vendors who process them, and reuse them.

Category 4 - E-Waste This includes batteries, floppy, CDs, bulbs, printers, computers, electrical and electronic gadgets, etc. These again can be sold to specialized and accredited (by local municipalities) vendors, who disassemble them and parts are sold.

?Category 5 – Medical Waste (ideally, but in most cases does not happen)

These are unused medicines, syringes, testing tools, body fluids, etc. They are to be incarnated.

Though over some time, our plans got tweaked, these are the broad tenets that we have followed: 1. We will segregate the waste at the source. 2. The kitchen waste will be processed in the Organic Processing Plant inside the community (which came as part of the building) and will be converted to fertilizer. This will then be used for the community greenery, given to the residents for their kitchen gardens, and excess will be sold.

3. Re-cycleable waste will be collected and sold to specialized vendors.

4. Electronic waste will be collected and sold to accredited vendors.

5. Medical waste – for the time being, we decided to be part of non-recyclable waste.

?So the only waste that will go out of the campus will be the non-recyclable waste, which should be anything between 10-20% of waste generated. And we will earn revenue from recyclable and electronic waste, and hopefully save on vendor payment on the waste going out of the community.

?The following were the steps that were taken: 1. Each apartment was asked to separate its waste at source – wet, dry-recyclable, dry-non-recyclable, and e-waste.

2. For organic and non-recyclable waste we asked the residents to store them in two different plastic packs. We gave them red and green stickers to be pasted on the organic waste and non-recyclable waste bags respectively (these were printed by the association and financed from the maintenance fund).

However, over the period we felt that we were adding plastic in the process, and we started providing two buckets (red and green) for each apartment. 3. For the recyclable waste, a bag was provided. The bag and the buckets were given for free the first time, and subsequently, they were sold at a nominal price.

4. For electronic waste, we provided five collection points across the community. They were large buckets with instructions about what is e-waste, these were provided by vendors to whom we were selling.

?Collection plan – we wanted to plan the collection in such a way that it does not burden the housekeeping staff, does not create stinks or give the premises a dirty look, and there is pilferage (specifically for e-waste, as many times people dump stuff with residual value.

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Category 1 - Kitchen Wet?waste?or Organic waste, Compostable

This will be coming with a green sticker, and now a green bucket.

Will be collected every day, and will be taken to the organic processing plant.

This plant has the entire system of converting organic waste into manure, the only additional input needed is sawdust (or newspaper in the early stage to absorb the water.

?Category 2 - Dry Waste?- Non-Compostable:

This comes in with a red sticker and is now in the red bucket.

This is collected every day. is collected at a designated area just near the exit, so that it does not create any inconvenience, and can go out of the campus quickly.

Remember, ideally, this is the only waste that will be going to the landfills or any other processing the municipality will be doing.

?Category 3 - Recyclable dry?waste: This comes in the basket and is collected three days a week – Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday.

Some rooms have been designated in the basement of the apartment to stock them, and they are picked up by the designated vendors a couple of times a month. We expmanyed many vendors and finally found t oneswo good ones - ITC WOW (https://www.itcpspd.com/Page/Wellbeing_out_of_Waste) & and KK Plastics Waste Management (www.kkplasticroads.com). ?KK Plastics finally agreed to be the vendor.

?Category 4 - E-Waste This needed some understanding, as we found out that e-wate processing is very controlled and can be done by only one that has the license from a BBMP. Ta here are a total of 74 of them in Karnataka today, approved by the Karnataka Pollution Control Board.

We selected Ash Recyclers (www.ashrecyclers.com),?as our partner. However given the sensitivity of the waste, we visited their operations at Thimmaiah Road.

They gave us five bins, which were placed at five locations inside the apartment. This was then sold, with collection once a month.

?One persistent issue in waste management was people leaving their garbage outside the door in the morning, while the collections may be hours later. So we also bought a set of Green, Red, and Blue buckets (with stickers mentioning their purposes), one set for the basement of each of the towers in the society. This was to dump Organic, Non-Recyclable, and Recyclable waste in case it was to be done in the odd hours.

?But so far had been theory and a good plan. Making this happen needs takes commitment, and time. The following were done to make the project a success:

1.?????? Complete ownership and involvement by the Management Committee. This was demonstrated by the investments made in stickers, buckets, bins, and bags.

2.?????? Understanding of the categories of waste, clear plans for each of the categories, and identification, and post-due diligence of the right vendors.

3.?????? Rejuvenation of the Organic Processing Plant, including minor repairs and personnel identification.

4.?????? Campaigns about the initiative through various means – emails, posters, events.

5.?????? Tracking of compliance daily and publication of results, indicating relative compliance of various towers.

?The program has been running for a decade now with mixed results. There have been many learnings, and I would like to summarize them here:

Macro issues:

1.?????? Waste Management is way down the priority of the affluent middle class in India. Most still think that if we pay, someone is there to take care of it.

2.?????? authorities are normally saddled with more important issues like traffic and urban flooding etc. and waste management is way down their priority. As a result, the fund allocation in the space is low, and latent is unavailable.

3.?????? A lot of these are because of crony practices that get incorporated to cut corners at the construction stage. Like not having a Solid Waste Management Plant for large commercial and residential complexes, even though it is mandatory.

4.?????? awareness of citizens about waste management is low, even for the few who are keen, as it has not been part of our education. So learning is more by hits and misses before a sustainable solution is achieved.

5.?????? The entire system is largely a continuous system of violations and compromises by various players, resulting in a largely dirty system. But hold on, still many good people are trying to do good.

Macro Issues:

1.?????? A core team that is ready to remain engaged over the years is critical. The compliance by the residents slowly takes off, and sort of saturates around 80%.

2.?????? The reason is many – new residents are unaware, people who can’t handle the segregation (old age, or paying guest accommodation), and odd working hours do not help maintain discipline.

3.?????? The support from the senior leadership of the agencies (like BBMP, KPCB, etc.) is high, but that does not percolate to the lower levels.

4.?????? The vendors are and often struggle themselves to maintain schedules, or make payments.

5.?????? significant burden on the support staff on additional work of stocking segregated garbage etc. with no additional payment (which we corrected later on).

6.?????? The collection is a large lobby, which has grease palms to get the license. So reduced revenue for them meets with resistance (we tried a different organization for garbage collection. They were harassed and forced to quit).

7.?????? While many supply the Organic Processing Plants, their maintenance capabilities (given very few of the installed capacities are used) are limited. Hence running the system meets with regular disruptions.

8.?????? The excess manure produced (over and above the internal requirements) is difficult to dispose of. While the prevailing rate of fertilizer was INR 50-70 for 10 kg, we struggled to get even INR 10.

9.?????? The additional revenue and cost savings are minimal, and largely there is limited appreciation from the authorities. So incentives have diminishing returns.

10.?? It requires a lot of time, passion, and patience to see results. And that is something one needs to be cognizant of at the beginning.