PinkyChandran, KabirArora and Nalini Shekhar Bengaluru
Mary is a waste-picker in Bengaluru. A single mother of two, she walks up to 25 km
every day to collect 75- odd kg of waste, for a paltry sum of `100–150 a day.
Being a woman, Mary is often harassed by lewd and drunk men, questioned by the
police, threatened by other contract workers, laughed at by kids or accused by
the neighbours of being a thief, yet she continues making rounds to collect
waste, every day. Waste-picking for her and 25,000 others in Bengaluru is not a
hobby, but an occupation that—apart from a fair share of hazards—is considered
dirty, ridiculed and traditionally excluded from the narratives of urban life.
Like most Indian cities, Bengaluru has a booming informal economy with
an estimated 25,000 waste-pickers, working together with the municipal waste
system as it follows a centralised approach of collection and
transportation to the landfills. However, despite this attitude of treating
waste as disposal, several community-based initiatives were set up in the late
1980s, stressing the need for public participation in solid waste management. The
Centre for Environment Education (CEE) started the Committee for Clean
Bangalore in partnership with various organisations in 1989 to promote
segregation at source. Twenty years later, in 2009, a group of individuals
called the Solid Waste Management Round Table (SWMRT) got together to promote
decentralised waste management in the city for efficient waste handling.
In 2011, an alliance of waste-pickers filed an affidavit for recognition
of waste-pickers which led the Lok Adalat to issue the landmark directive to
the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) for the registration and
enumeration of waste-pickers and scrap dealers. Around 8,000 waste-pickers were
enumerated and more than 6,000 provided identity cards by the municipal body,
which had the signature of the Commissioner of the city. This was facilitated
by Hasiru Dala, a waste-picker member-based organisation, and the occasional
advocacy of Solid Waste Management Round Table.
The identity card made them the legitimate children of the republic. It
allowed them to collect waste without facing harassment from the state or other
relevant bodies. The identity card also became a proof to avail of other social
welfare services provided by various governments like scholarships for the
children of those in unclean vocations, enumeration for Rashtriya Swasthya
Beema Yojna (RSBY) and so on. Hasiru Dala was instrumental in ensuring
enumeration and recognition for the workers.
But recognition was just the beginning. The Bengaluru municipal body
took another great step by signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the
erstwhile informal waste-pickers to operate ‘Dry waste collection centres’
(DWCC)—recyclable material sorting and collection centres. Hasiru Dala provides
managerial services in those centres. In addition, waste-pickers are upgrading
their skills to become total waste management service providers, consultants
who can be hired to do urban organic farming and to ensure zero waste weddings.
According to Hasiru Dala’s studies, Bengaluru generates around
3,000–5,000 tonnes of waste daily, of which a third, or 1,050 tonnes, are
sorted by around 15,000 waste-pickers to be sent for recycling. This reduces
carbon and methane gas emissions, as well as helps to economise the space in
landfills. Around 16,850 cubic metres of space, equivalent to seven
Olympic-size swimming pools, is saved every year due to this remarkable effort.
By recycling paper alone, the waste-pickers end up saving around 7,962 trees a
year. By sending plastic and glass for recycling, they save 3.9 million
electric units. Recycling also obviates a trip to the landfill, thereby saving
around 2,335 litres of fuel which would have been used in its transport.
Waste-pickers’ contributions to the reduction of municipal
waste-handling costs, resource recovery, environment conservation and climate
change mitigation has been documented by various studies and the Expert
Committee on Solid Waste Management constituted by the Supreme Court of
India. With the Swachch Bharat Mission, the focus must be on organising
and reclaiming these livelihoods.
This story is from the print issue
of Hardnews: OCTOBER 2014
- See more at: http://www.hardnewsmedia.com/2014/10/6424#sthash.GqJXN6FP.dpuf
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