Kalpana Kar a member of Bangalore Agenda Task Force [BATF] of the Karnataka Government was in charge of the power break fast meet to day.
The BATF team was headed by Nandan Nilekani and members included like Naresh Venkataramanan, Kalpana Kar, Ramesh Ramanathan, Ravichander, Suresh Heblikar, Late H.Narasimhaiah, [1]
Satish Bhargava the first speaker felt that, Merchants, Builders, Apartments, Hospitals, Factories, Hoteliers, are the bulk waste generators. These bulk waste generators, Solution providers and government should work hand in hand for the best results. Mixing of garbage should be totally avoided. Provision of multiple bins in each work place or a house hold thus, is the key to avoid mixing. There should be a Value attached to each category of waste. Reclaim all waste of any value to minimize land fill, in short.
Kalpana Kar summarized that Dry waste collection centers for Traders, Hotels and Hospitals is a must. Decentralization is the key for a meaning full waste management. The hospitals in Bangalore need to take special care of sanitary waste. Commitment from big Industries is forth coming according to her. Ajay Nanavati Managing director at 3M Bangalore was sited at this juncture. [2]
Almitra Patel [3] had asked for the exact details of how Bangalore hospitals are handling their toxic waste. What I found from a casual enquiry with Manipal hospital was that it depends on a contractor who takes away their waste. I am afraid this certainly is alarming to say the least!
Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) commissioner Siddaiah woke up to the garbage mess that's defacing the city and some of its outskirts, on Saturday, and asserted that there would be no more landfills around [4]
Siddaiah addressed the gathering mentioning Sarvodaya Nagar MLA KJ George seated next to him. This MLA according to him has taken good initiative with traders, Hospitals and Hoteliers.
To day he was happy to attend this meeting sponsored by CRDAI [5]. CREDAI according to him has good initiative, experience and diligence. The commissioner wished to have Dry waste collection centers in each of 198 wards of Bangalore. He invited the BDA chairman present to extend his support to the cities problem. Interaction on a daily basis would be welcomed.
How many apartments are in Bangalore? No data with BBMP? Land fills can be minimized. Siddaiah mentioned about Nagaraj Reddy the BDA Chairman, and KJ George. George lives in a Tech Park which has 25 companies including Microsoft. . Microsoft Company has 35000 people. These are the people who should make the commitment. He requested Kalpana to have Pilot plants in each zone. He wanted commitment from CREDAI with 600 hand picked builders to be the pilots.
The commissioner alluded next to the Historical Debris. He felt the same should be cleared. The commissioner wanted a commitment from BDA. Follow up action on clearance of debris is also a must. Bye laws need to be scrutinized on a regular basis. Long list of Penal pending actions is a night mare.
In short the BBMP commissioner wanted all 28 hub constituencies with zero dumping and only processing.
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Other views floated were:-
The garbage contractors are the mafia. Among 8 wards 4 good 4 bad. No decision across board. Lowest quotation is the stumbling block. Dumping space of 500 acres in a stretch is not possible. Dust bins are required at some places. They cannot be eliminated. Rag pickers need to be trained. We need to re habitat them later. Cook town is ok. No ward is willing to provide any place for any machinery
The Chairman said he has 5 STPs in the tech park. 90% garbage is processed in house. In addition Rain water harvesting compliance is also in place. This tech park has clear drains. A 50 kg Biogas unit is operative. Retrofit solution for elimination of sanitary lines is available.
Local vs Federal debate.
Mr. Venkat Ramanan a renowned Architect was threatened by the Garbage mafia which did make the Architect quit his dream Garbage management project. There are 150 service provides. Cauvery water is limited, so is ground water. We should not pollute ground water. Water Tankers is not a good solution.
Poonam bir Kasturi [7] felt that Toxic material cannot be identified with naked eye. Batteries poison our environment. However simple solutions are available. Trees are shredding the leaves. These leaves need to be composted locally and not transported or burnt as is done currently by the contractor. Hiding dust bin is a sin.
Sandhya narayanan concluded by saying that what our next generation need is our commitment.
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Some pictures Taken during the meet
Picture - 1 BBMP Commissioner giving his address.
Picture - 2 BDA Chairman Responding to Mr. Siddaiah
On last day made it, informative and should practice daily
On Sunday last day of the event, went and lot of efforts by NGO's and people in grarbage processing mainly wet grabage ( Kitchen ).
I do't know how many more months will BBMP or GOK takes time to put garbage processing units in each Assembly area. \
Bigger problem is collection of Garbage in each locality. With huge floating population and people travelling from outside to city for work & their needs, collection of seggregated garbage from these people is also important.
As such their are hardly collection places for seggregated garbage in the city except collection from door to door. Now days I find most of the places in Bangalore, people put the garbage in plastic cover and drop in isolated places accross B'lore. This problem is due to lack of big dust bins in each locality.
This happens may be one of the example : If family is travelling out of station in the night and has to drop the garbage from its independent house, in such case, people put the garbage in plastic cover and throw in isolated area.
So collection of seggregated garbage apart from door to door, in market places , localiy of high density population, public places will make huge difference
Mercury-containing Light Bulbs/Lamps CFL
Reducing the release of mercury into the environment—RCW 70.275 passed the Washington State Legislature in 2010. It establishes a producer-financed product stewardship program for the collection, recycling, and disposal of mercury-containing lights. Producers of Compact Fluorescent (CFL) lights must participate in and fully implement a product stewardship program by January 1, 2013. Beginning in 2013, no CFLs may be placed into the garbage.
http://www.ecy.wa.gov/mercury/mercury_light_bulbs.html
I read lot about the other side of CFL lamps dis-advantages. So above thing clearly tells, we should be carefull in handling failed CFL lamps. Should not allow it to break which is most safer thing and store in porper bag so that Mercury ( Hg ) emit from broken CFL.
So how are we prepared for CFL disposal. I would like to know how many of us have kept the failed CFL lamps and handed over to e-waste collection / processing company???
Regarding this, on Sunday in freedom park, i asked KSPCB stall whats mechanism for Thermocool & CFL lamps collection and processing. His answer was respecive companies will take care.
I asked as further, when we buy elecronic goods or delicate items, we get the thermocool. Some times its bigger, how r we suppose to dispose of this, his answer was BBMP is responsible for this.