Smoke bellowing from mounds of garbage in various parts of the city has rung alarm bells among citizens about its impact on the air quality. There is now a measure to the pollution caused by intermittent burning of garbage, and the results are not pleasant, sometimes exceeding the pollution levels in New Delhi.
Clement Jayakumar, a software engineer and resident of Doddanekundi, armed with Laser Egg, a hand-held device to measure the air quality index (AQI), started analysing the pollution levels and got alarming results. For instance, on November 28, when huge mounds of garbage and shrubs were set afire at Goshala, a 100-plus acre property in the area, Mr. Jayakumar measured the AQI, and it read 500 — which is categorised as severe.
“My house is nearly a kilometre away from the Goshala, where garbage is usually set afire, and the reading was 500 that day. Five hundred is the maximum limit the device can take. It may have been much higher,” he said.
“Usually, the AQI reading in Whitefield area has been in the range of 120 to 200, much above the normal limit of 50. However, over the last one month, I have observed that whenever there is garbage burning in the area, the AQI is in 300 to 400 range, which is categorised as very poor, the levels Delhi is experiencing now,” he said.
There seems to be no end in sight to the suffering of residents in areas such as Whitefield and Mahadevapura as garbage burning in open plots of land continues unabated despite several complaints being raised and Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) officials booking cases.
Residents of Bellandur, Whitefield, Mahadevapura, and Doddanekundi have been putting up posts or messages along with photographs on social media about garbage burning in their areas over the last four weeks.
“Being allergic to smoke, we can’t open our doors and windows almost the entire day, every day. My mother gets migraine and I will have breathing problem every time the smoke gets in,” Sampada Moghe, a resident of Kaggadasapura, said in a Facebook post. Similar reports have emerged from several other localities as well.
