The story of Saahas is also the story of rapid urbanisation of Bengaluru and its rising consumerism. Saahas is an organisation which deals with waste management in the city. When Wilma Rodrigues started it 2001, Bengaluru was generating 1,600 tonnes of waste and today the figure stands at 4,000 tonnes (per day) which is BBMP solid waste alone. Biomedical waste, chemical waste and other hazardous waste is not included in this. “When the scale of problem is gigantic, Dr.Wilma realised it can’t operate on the basis of charities and donation, says K.Vishal Kumar, Programme Manager, Saahas Waste Management.
In 2013, NGO Saahas evolved into a business model through Saahas Waste Mangement private limited. And today, they are one of the few in Bengaluru, which offer professional services to tech parks, corporates, apartment complexes in managing their waste. With handling 25 tonnes of waste per day in Bengaluru, Vishal feels, they haven’t even scratched the surface. From primary segregation of waste to composting on site to transportation and secondary segregation, Saahas provides end-to-end solutions to their clients. Their field staff even captures real time data and prepares monthly reports. “The factories, companies which are so number and data driven don’t even know how much waste they are generating. We just want to get rid of it. We don’t want to know what happens to the waste we generate. It is known as NIMBI (not in my backyard) syndrome,” states Vishal.
The field staff is trained in sorting and handling waste. “The wet waste goes for composting on site, for instance, in RMZ Ecospace, and the dry waste is sorted on site at primary level and then again at secondary level to segregate different grades of plastic, glass, sanitary waste, soiled tissues. While the wet waste stands at 60%, dry waste is at 30% and 10% is sanitary waste. As opposed to the US, we generate more of wet waste which is good because it is recyclable.”
He also says the waste handlers in their organisation work with a lot of dignity, social security and proper salaries. “They wear proper gloves and masks, get PF and salaries. They don’t squat and sort out the waste and nor do they work in filthy conditions, which is a very important thing. ”
Changing mindsets
Saahas has expanded to Chennai and together in two cities Saahas is operating on site on 30 plus locations. It recently handled the waste at IPL matches which Vishal says was a complete mess in terms of waste generated. “About six-seven tonnes of waste was generated in every match. There were cartons and cartons of unopened food, cold drinks thrown away after just one sip. And though we were hired to do the job, we were not given passes easily but when the officials saw us sorting waste, they realised we were serious about our job.
They, then offered us all kinds of help,” The mindset is changing but very gradually. Vishal talks about how people don’t want to pay for services like these nor do they find any merit in segregating their waste. “We go door-to-door and a lot of people ask us ‘Why do I pay when I am segregating waste?’ Apartment complexes want to hire contractors who will offer lower prices.”
Powerful legislations
In 2016, came a set of six progressive waste management rules for bio-medical waste, hazardous waste, construction demolition material, plastic, municipal solid waste and electronic waste.
“All the rules and policies related to waste management, especially e-waste, are very progressive. Even the Karnataka State High Court order says that all bulk generators have to manage their waste on site. Even the BBMP guidelines are very strong in this regard,” emphasises Vishal.
He goes on to talk about EPR (Extended producer responsibility) which puts onus of managing the waste on the producer beyond consumption. “PET bottles recycling was always very high in our country but rag pickers wouldn’t pick up tetrapaks. After the EPR came in, we are managing tetrapak waste and chanelling it to recycling partners. We had to train scrap dealers in understanding its recycling value,” reveals Vishal.
In fact, Saahas also sells products like roofing sheets, pen stands, bags, notepads made out of tetrapak and other recyclable material.
(To know more about it, please visitwww.saahas.org or call: Phone: 080 4168 9889)
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