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Time of India
2 days ago
- General
- Time of India
Help wanted: Experienced garbologists
R Edwin Sudhir, a Bengaluru-based journalist and writer, has the interesting privilege of living in a once-sleepy town which has morphed into a city fast-forwarding into a connected world but sadly disconnected with the ground realities of more people competing for shrinking space. The experience is oddly exhilarating yet often mildly alarming for long-time residents who see how technology has transformed a sleepy beantown into a bustling boomtown. And swept its residents too in the headlong rush to keep pace. LESS ... MORE Bengaluru generates humongous tonnes of garbage every day. The city's civic body may give you an official figure but the actual figure could be higher, as it usually is with government data. A lot of it ends up on pavements and street corners and some piles up on overflowing vans parked by the roads. Much of it is carted away by smelly vehicles which do the rounds every morning. Men from them dart across to pick up (mostly) black, (often) biodegradable bags from bungalows or tip the contents of blue, plastic drums from apartments into their trucks. Off they go to one landfill or the other on the outskirts of the city. This exercise is repeated every morning with some regularity, marred by festival days or flash strikes. Some of this garbage is segregated and some is mixed. That's why Greater Bengaluru Authority desperately needs garbologists. Its precursor, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike, tried bravely to deal with the refuse but GBA needs men and women trained in garbology. Sadly, no university in India seems to offer this course and that's where the three Bengaluru universities can be pioneers. There are several models, like the University of Nevada Las Vegas. Our varsities can use the American models to design course content and customise material to local conditions. Students can intern with GBA and once they graduate, they can be absorbed into its solid waste department. It's not rocket science, after all. Collect waste from residents, segregrate it and dispose it as per protocol. Waste-to-energy management is a huge opportunity for entrepreneurs willing to get their hands dirty. Anu Aga's Thermax Ltd in Pune has shown it's eminently possible. Of course, residents need to do their bit, without leaving everything to the SWD. For starters, segregate waste, ensure black spots don't form, don't dump plastic water bottles and empty chips packets into drains, among others. Every bit helps. To circle back a bit, garbologists are not only waste disposers. They analyse a city's waste to look for patterns of how it's generated and look for better ways to clear it. Bengaluru will be going to the root cause of the garbage problem and hopefully find solutions quickly. Lest we are forced to suffer an olfactory assault of rotting waste and suffer the ignominy of going from Garden City Garbage City in the span of just a few decades. Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email Disclaimer Views expressed above are the author's own.
Time of India
19-05-2025
- Climate
- Time of India
Water wars
R Edwin Sudhir, a Bengaluru-based journalist and writer, has the interesting privilege of living in a once-sleepy town which has morphed into a city fast-forwarding into a connected world but sadly disconnected with the ground realities of more people competing for shrinking space. The experience is oddly exhilarating yet often mildly alarming for long-time residents who see how technology has transformed a sleepy beantown into a bustling boomtown. And swept its residents too in the headlong rush to keep pace. LESS ... MORE Around this time last year, Bengaluru was in dire straits on the water front. There was a crisis of never-seen-before proportions that the government was forced to issue advisories to residents to mandatorily install aerators and banned the use of potable water for gardening and washing cars, among other stern measures. We somehow coped with the situation and survived until the monsoon brought welcome relief. And the trials and tribulations slowly became a bad memory and a story to tell grandkids. Here we are, a year later, proving public memory is indeed short and ignoring multiple warnings that the next world war will be fought over water (that it may well be fought over data is another story). We waste water with not a thought for the future and make no effort to harvest rain water which gushes into the drains, or more often stagnates on the roads. Anyone who has drilled a borewell recently will tell you how they've had to go deeper than ever before to strike water. The water table is getting lowered and it's not getting sufficiently, and rapidly, replenished. A recipe for disaster, and replay of the water woes of the summer of '24 is a distinct possibility. So, why haven't we learnt our lesson and put in place measures throughout the year, not just summer? Perhaps it's because we moan and groan during tough times but don't prepare for bad times. It's a bit like war. As the old saying goes, the more you sweat during peace to remain fighting fit, the less you will suffer during conflict. We waste water, little realising we need to wage an awareness battle for this precious resource. Some are reminded of its importance every day. In Bengaluru, there are water-dispensing kiosks under the government's Bandhava scheme which offers purified drinking water, at a price of course, and those with dry taps at home go there regularly with 5-litre cans. Most come on two-wheelers which means they're also spending on fuel and adding to traffic on the roads. These kiosks are a reminder of the gravity of the problem and that they're only a band-aid solution to a gash that will open up again. We perhaps need another 2024 crisis to shock us out of our complacency and do every little bit to save water. There are some organisations doing commendable work but it's obviously not enough. Maybe if some corporates with deep pockets use their CSR money for this exercise, and maybe if they target children, there's some hope. After all, the kids will be water-proofing their future. Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email Disclaimer Views expressed above are the author's own.
