Private firm, NGOs to ply own carts to solve garbage problem

Bengaluru: Soon, if you see a tricycle carrying two containers approaching your house, ensure that you segregate the waste into dry and wet and dump them into separate containers.

For hundreds of Bengalureans who tried segregating garbage and got tired of BBMP workers mixing it, a group of NGOs seems to be leading the way.

In Jayanagar, founder-member of the private firm Vennar Organic Ltd, Narendra Babu, is planning to rope in an NGO running a dry waste collection center (DWCC) in the locality to ensure garbage is strictly segregated.

To achieve this, he has remodeled a tricycle with two separate containers on either side to collect garbage.

He decided to launch the campaign with the NGOs as knocking on the doors of BBMP officials and corporators proved pointless.

“It only led to a blame-game. Individually, BBMP officials are good, the corporators are cooperative and the MLA is helpful.

But there is an error in the system and the end result is not achieved,” he says.  Determined to make a change, he approached the DWCC and appointed two workers from each organisation to collect segregated waste.

“We plan to reach 30 houses every day and increase it by 30 houses on alternative days. The aim is to reach 1,000 houses and collect 600 kg of wet waste and 300 kilos of dry waste every day,” he explains.

While wet waste will be composted into manure at the processing plant maintained by Vennar in Jayanagar, the dry waste will be sold at Rs 5 per kg. The organisation hopes to cover the project cost and maintenance by the money earned through selling manure and dry waste.

Depending on the success of the model, he plans to replicate it in other areas.