The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Wasted: an authority on waste management

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Wednesday, Aug 06, 2008
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Wasted: an authority on waste management

Krishnaprasad

Almitra H. Patel

Bangalore: Disgraceful. This is how Almitra H. Patel describes the failure of the Bangalore city administration to designate waste disposal sites eight years after the Municipal Solid Wastes (Management and Handling) Rules came into existence.

There is none more empowered to say this than 72-year old Ms. Patel, whose legal battle in the Supreme Court led to the formulation of the rules for the entire country.

Ms. Patel has lived on the outskirts of the city near Kothanur on Bagalur Road for the last 36 years. She says all that the city’s municipal managers must do is to follow in letter and spirit the report “Solid waste management in class-1 cities in India” brought out by the committee constituted by the Supreme Court based on her public interest litigation petition.

Ms. Patel, who holds a Masters in Engineering (ceramics) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has studied the municipal waste disposal system in 138 cities in India and 19 waste disposal facilities in seven foreign countries.

She took up the issue of municipal waste management when she was 62 years old after she noticed how garbage contractors began indiscriminately disposing of garbage on either sides of the roads on the city’s outskirts, and onto marshes and stream banks.

While stressing the need for segregation of waste, Ms. Patel says that the municipal authorities should ensure that degradable and non-degradable wastes are separated at the primary level. This they have failed to do.

Also, the wastes collected from road sweeping and from households should not be mixed as it would affect the waste processing method due to mixing of mud and with degradable waste, she says.

Another important aspect ignored by the city administration is disposal of construction waste — building materials, debris and rubble from constructions, remodelling, repair and demolition operations, Ms. Patel points out. She says that many countries use such waste after processing as a base while constructing roads. She feels it is time the civic authorities included the subject of waste segregation into the BBMP bylaws. Its separation into organic, inorganic and recyclable should be made mandatory for residents.

Despite her experience in municipal waste management, Ms. Patel has kept herself away from BBMP in the past few years due to what she says is the “indifferent attitude of the officials towards waste management.” “I am dying to help them, but only if they want it,” says Ms. Patel, whose guidance is being sought by many civic bodies.

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