Stem the rot!

What is it with Bengaluru and Bengalureans?

For all the efforts that have been put in place to ensure that waste is segregated at the household level to make it easier for disposing garbage efficiently, it is coming to nothing.

The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has now given up on pursuing segregate-at-source method of disposing waste; instead, it has decided to send mixed (unsegregated waste) to processing units.

Now, these processing units are not designed to process mixed waste – a big problem!

You might wonder what the problem is! It’s huge! When the contractors running these units realise the difficulty in processing mixed waste, the next instant step will be to not accept the mixed waste. That will ensure that this garbage rests in peace by the roadsides – your street corners.

You can imagine how much it would enhance our city’s image as ‘Garbage City’.

Are you wondering how this will come about?

Here goes: Bengaluru does not have a single landfill worth its name to take in mixed wastes. Biomethanation units, too, are closing down one by one as the cash-strapped BBMP has failed to pay them over the past months – in fact right from when they were commissioned and started operations.

Biomethanation is a process by which organic material is microbiologically converted under anaerobic conditions (without oxygen) to biogas. Anaerobic conditions feature lack of free oxygen, but may contain atomic oxygen bound in compounds such as nitrate (NO₃), nitrite (NO₂), and sulfites (SO₃). Three main physiological groups of microorganisms are involved – fermenting bacteria, organic acid oxidizing bacteria, and methanogenic archaea.

These units are able to generate electricity by converting the segregated wet waste into biogas, from which power can be generated.

But these units are different from the processing units we are talking about here. The processing units where the BBMP has planned to send mixed waste are general treatment processing units, not biomethanation units.

Either ways there would be a problem sending mixed waste.

The problem itself is the mixed waste, which has to be – HAS TO BE – segregated.

That responsibility lies on you, dear Bengalurean. If you have the pride in saying “Namma Bengaluru”, or even “Namma Kannada Rashtra” and so on, please ensure that these feelings do not remain rhetorical. Because if that happens, you will be remembered as citizens of one of the dirtiest cities on Earth!

And that day may not be far off when we hang our heads in helpless shame, because we would be faced with no alternative but to continue hanging our heads in shame!