Though the city has door-to-door collection of garbage, there are still thousands of black spots where mixed waste continues to be dumped indiscriminately. Clearing these black spots is proving to be a big challenge for the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), which has now taken up an exercise to map them all.
According to senior civic officials, over the past few years, several attempts have been made to clear the black spots. The BBMP had successfully eliminated nearly 1,000 of the over 2,500 black spots.
This was done with assistance from The Ugly Indians, marshals, and pourakarmikas.
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“While the 1,000 that were eliminated have not come back, we had installed CCTV cameras in a few others. However, the black spots only got shifted to areas not covered by the cameras. We decided to take up mapping these spots to get to the root of the problem and ensure that these spots do not come back,” said Sarfaraz Khan, BBMP’s Joint Commissioner (Solid Waste Management).
To reduce dependency on the landfill, the civic body is now contemplating installing segregation machines in different parts of the city. Senior officials said that this was done in a few towns in Tamil Nadu, such as Kumbakonam.
“Just from the black spots, we collect around 300 tonnes of mixed waste. Even a small effort such as this will go a long way in reducing dependency on the landfills,” said a civic official.
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Mr. Khan, confirming the development, said that the BBMP had recently floated tenders for installing segregation machines of smaller capacities, either at the ward-level or the division-level.
“We have identified some locations where these segregation machines can be installed, such as Jakkur, Jayanagar and even the recovered land at the Bellahalli quarry,” he said.
That apart, the BBMP is also working towards increasing segregation levels from 40% to at least 70%. “This is an achievable target and we are working with various stakeholders for the same,” he added.