Sinking into landfills

Bangalore's garbage crisis should alert other cities

Bangalore has just won a temporary reprieve from the garbage problem besetting it for over two months now. During the latest phase of the crisis, in which garbage removal stopped for several days, there were worries over the heightened risk of dengue, malaria and jaundice. With a show of force and intense persuasion, the state government has won time from the villagers living around the Mandur landfill to keep dumping garbage there till end-January, by when it will make alternative arrangements. They have been stopping trucks from coming in with garbage since the site has become a health hazard for them. Mandur remains the only dumping ground for the city as two others have been closed for various reasons, including cease orders from the state Pollution Control Board for not following safe practices.

Virtually every Indian city is faced with a variation of Bangalore’s problem. Protests by villagers refusing to allow landfills to function near them have periodically created crises for many cities. Those keeping crisis at bay are able to do so because they still have access to landfills. But this option is likely to run out for most cities; there cannot be an endless supply of landfills in uninhabited areas near large urban centres. The Bangalore crisis is an early warning, and the solution for it should be used as a template across the country.

Such a solution not only exists, but is being used all over the world — and even in a few Indian cities, if in bits and pieces. Solid waste generated by humans has to be first segregated as much as possible at the source (households and businesses); residual segregation has to be done at collection points across an urban area; organic waste has to be treated at decentralised plants next to collection centres (reducing the cost of bulk transportation); recyclable inorganic waste has to be aggregated and transported to where it can be further treated; and the final untreatable residual waste – around 10 per cent of the original volume – has to be carted off to a landfill where it can be compacted and buried deep enough so that it cannot pollute, either above or below the ground. Kanpur and Pune have implemented parts of this process successfully. But nearly all other Indian cities are far from this norm. As a result, uncollected garbage and stinking overflowing dumps are a common sight, large bills for transporting garbage have to be paid, and local protests mark landfill sites. At the root of all this is the appalling quality of urban local authorities — kept toothless, incompetent and impoverished by states that have consistently ignored the constitutional requirement to empower government’s third tier.