Looking back, 2015 can best be described as a year of ‘No Show for the City’. Because of the change in guard at the BBMP Council, the administration was in complete doldrums with total lack of continuity and decision making.
The much-talked-about and much-awaited door to door collection and transportation tender has not got implemented. An entire year has gone by in waiting for the tender terms to be finalised, legal hurdles to be cleared and bid stage to be reached. It is no wonder that 2015 was plagued by garbage crisis. There was no one to collect garbage, and even if it was collected there was no place to take it to. Such was the state of solid waste management this year.
Yet, the High Court came out with a big bang direction on segregation at source asking the BBMP to implement the two bin and one bag policy just a few weeks ago, which will make 2015 a memorable one. This single landmark direction has made Bangalore the first city to follow the three-way segregation at source, while enforcing colour coding specifications.
What, however, stands out is that it was a year of individual action. A city waste picker, who represented his brethren at the Paris Climate Change summit, a SWM stalwart who took it upon himself to promote an eco-Ganesha festival, a star wedding that showed how it was possible to have a responsible zero waste wedding, a BBMP joint commissioner who has been doing outstanding work in community mobilization in the Yelahanka zone and the MLA of Malleswaram constituency who is giving extraordinary leadership to bring in real solid waste management in his constituency.
Let us usher in the New Year with the understanding that the collective result of our individual actions as a citizen, as an official and as a legislator will really be the game-changer in bringing in the change that we want to see in solid waste management.
(The author is a member of Solid Waste Management Round Table, SWMRT, a citizen group which has been working since 2008 on sustainable decentralised solid waste management in Bengaluru)
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