garbage

Bangalore is supposedly a bin-free city. An unofficial garbage dump, across Jagriti Theatre in Whitefield, with a slum behind and shops in the neighbourhood. A wine shop next door. At night, the lighting for the spot was non-existent making the place easier to dump in. A few weeks back the black spots at .Ramagondanahalli dump on the sidewalk had got spruced up, and so this one saw even heavier use. This spot fix took 2 days. 2 communities and The Ugly Indians with the Whitefield Rising team. This fix required some homework. The slum behind was polled on what went…

Bangalore is supposedly a bin-free city. An unofficial garbage dump, across Jagriti Theatre in Whitefield, with a slum behind and shops in the neighbourhood. A wine shop next door. At night, the lighting for the spot was non-existent making the place easier to dump in. A few weeks back the black spots at .Ramagondanahalli dump on the sidewalk had got spruced up, and so this one saw even heavier use. This spot fix took 2 days. 2 communities and The Ugly Indians with the Whitefield Rising team. This fix required some homework. The slum behind was polled on what went…

God knows Whitefield needs help. Therefore it may have been a wise move to have the next spot fix outside the historic Memorial Church. Dell brought an enthusiastic team out while Brigade sponsored the civil work. BESCOM ensured folks were safe and powered down the transformer(sorry if you were affected) while BBMP and BTP did their bit. Whitefield Club opened their gates for the transit area and the team got cracking. As always, magic happens when the atmosphere is charged with such positivity and energy. People get creative, work hard in a team and get the job done. Of special…

God knows Whitefield needs help. Therefore it may have been a wise move to have the next spot fix outside the historic Memorial Church. Dell brought an enthusiastic team out while Brigade sponsored the civil work. BESCOM ensured folks were safe and powered down the transformer(sorry if you were affected) while BBMP and BTP did their bit. Whitefield Club opened their gates for the transit area and the team got cracking. As always, magic happens when the atmosphere is charged with such positivity and energy. People get creative, work hard in a team and get the job done. Of special…

Not so early in the morning, I look down from my third floor apartment. There’s a lady sweeping the dead-end road. I know her, though I don’t know her name. She wears the official BBMP coat and she collects garbage from each of the apartment building. Sometimes I see her, while walking, from a car and smile and wave at her. She smiles back. A beautiful, cheery smile, but with an edge of self-consciousness. As if unused to be smiled at. As if unacknowledged as a human by those who live in apartments. (Pic for representation only. Can’t find the…

Not so early in the morning, I look down from my third floor apartment. There’s a lady sweeping the dead-end road. I know her, though I don’t know her name. She wears the official BBMP coat and she collects garbage from each of the apartment building. Sometimes I see her, while walking, from a car and smile and wave at her. She smiles back. A beautiful, cheery smile, but with an edge of self-consciousness. As if unused to be smiled at. As if unacknowledged as a human by those who live in apartments. (Pic for representation only. Can’t find the…

People from very different walks of life gathered on a sidewalk today. The common thread linking them all was "dignity" and an inexplicable oneness. A cleaner street and gifts for people were mere by products. Over a month, led by Anjali Saini and her team, well heeled residents of communities worked side by side with BBMP garbage collectors, children, housewives, small shopkeepers and villagers. They took former black spots aka garbage heaps and open sewers and transformed them. Then they took pride in it and kept it that way. Today they came together to honour those that either made it…

People from very different walks of life gathered on a sidewalk today. The common thread linking them all was "dignity" and an inexplicable oneness. A cleaner street and gifts for people were mere by products. Over a month, led by Anjali Saini and her team, well heeled residents of communities worked side by side with BBMP garbage collectors, children, housewives, small shopkeepers and villagers. They took former black spots aka garbage heaps and open sewers and transformed them. Then they took pride in it and kept it that way. Today they came together to honour those that either made it…

I went on a 3 hour trip with a few industry leaders as well as BBMP officials yesterday, looking at some of the 'trail' of waste in the city. The idea was to get buy-in from all the chambers of industry to start doing whatever they can within their own campuses and also understand the economics of the waste trail. Three places that we visited all have important learnings to offer.The biogas plant at IIM, Bangalore substitutes for 16 cylinders of LPG each day, out of the wet waste collected on campus itself. It cost about 10 lakhs to set…

I went on a 3 hour trip with a few industry leaders as well as BBMP officials yesterday, looking at some of the 'trail' of waste in the city. The idea was to get buy-in from all the chambers of industry to start doing whatever they can within their own campuses and also understand the economics of the waste trail. Three places that we visited all have important learnings to offer.The biogas plant at IIM, Bangalore substitutes for 16 cylinders of LPG each day, out of the wet waste collected on campus itself. It cost about 10 lakhs to set…