Finding a solution for Bengaluru's garbage problem

Due to Hasiru Dala, waste pickers have found dignity in their work

Are we drowning in our own garbage? Spend some time talking to Nalini Shekar and her husband, Shekar Prabhakar of Hasiru Dala Innovations (it means green force in Kannada) and you will be convinced we are in real danger of it.

And while the Shekars are talking mostly of Bengaluru, once known as the garden city, the question is a valid one for several Indian cities — as most of us will testify. According to present estimates, 0.14 million tonnes of garbage is generated in India on a daily basis. Of this, 83 per cent is collected every day and only 23 per cent of what is collected is treated. The rest? The landfills — the horrific mountains of garbage — we see mostly on the outskirts of various cities.

Hasiru Dala estimates that total municipal solid waste generated in Bengaluru is closer to 8,000 tonnes, a figure closer to the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) estimate. It is estimated that the municipal collection efficiency is at around 60 per cent and only about 28 per cent of the waste is processed with the rest being dumped in landfills (empty sites or quarries) or burnt. 

Why isn’t more garbage collected and treated? There’s a combination of reasons for that, but mostly this is due to poor management by the civic authorities across cities, lack of segregation at source and general apathy. 

How many of us at home bother to segregate at source? How many try and make compost of our own waste?

The laws in Bengaluru incidentally are on the side of citizens who want a cleaner environment. In 2015, the city passed a law that mandated segregation of garbage at source into organic wet waste, recyclable dry waste, and rejects (sanitary waste, inerts). It even empowered the BBMP to levy fines on waste generators who do not segregate.

Second, bulk waste generators in the city have to manage their own waste. BWGs are residential communities with more than 50 households or commercial organisations that generate more than 10 kg of organic wet waste every day. These have to either manage their waste in-house with their own resources, or contract with an BBMP empanelled service provider. It is estimated that 40 per cent of a city’s waste is generated by bulk waste generators.

Established as a trust in 2013, Hasiru Dala has been working on its mission of total waste management services and creating viable livelihoods for wastepickers by getting them more organised and helping to improve their lot. “There are over 30,000 waste pickers in the city, who struggle to survive on a daily basis,” says Prabhakar. He says the average life span of a waste picker is only 39 years. The mission was incubated by the Tata Trust that provided it some initial seed capital. It has more recently raised funding through Ennovent.

In November 2015, the founders — and as Prabhakar puts it “late-stage entrepreneurs” as he and his wife are in their mid fifties — decided to register it as a company since the non-profit structure would not allow it to scale up in the long run. It now has 200-odd clients. 20,00 families in Bengaluru are segregating their waste at source. Many restaurants, cafes, residential complexes, tea shops, bakeries and corporate campuses are clients of the company’s. Large apartment complexes such as Raheja residency, Sobha Hill View, Mantri Residency and Adarsh Palm Retreat are clients of the mission.

Although this may just be a drop in the ocean, 3,000 tonnes of wet waste has been composted, over 900 tonnes of dry waste has been recycled and over 90 per cent of the waste collected has been diverted away from landfills and processed in some way or the other. Sixteen wastepicker franchisees — those who are providing the actual service on the ground — work with Hasiru Dala.

Due to the company’s efforts, 7,500 of the waste pickers now have occupational identity cards and can do their work without being harassed by the police and other authorities. This has lent legitimacy to their job and has allowed several of them to even open bank accounts. Their incomes have doubled and in some cases even tripled. 

But above all recognition has lent dignity to their work, giving them hope for a better future.