Are you frustrated with waste mismanagement? Join hands with BBMP, fellow Bengaluru citizens, and Jhatkaa.org to create clean spaces in the city.
What are the Solid Waste Management (SWM) rules right now?
The segregation of waste into wet and dry waste at source is compulsory, according to Bengaluru Bruhant Mahanagar Palike’s (BBMP) Solid Waste Management (SWM) rules, 2016. However, the city hardly segregates its waste. Only 30% of the city’s waste is segregated at source, which means a whopping 70% of the unsegregated waste ends up in landfills or water bodies polluting our air, soil, and water, as per BBMP.
Jhatkaa.org’s open-for-all platform, Namma Clean Bengaluru, which brings citizens and the BBMP together to act against garbage mismanagement in the city effectively tackles the black spots or areas where garbage is dumped by residents. Since its launch in May 2023, more than 300 reports have been submitted by the citizens using the tool. Additionally, 50 citizens have taken the initiative to engage with BBMP officials to address the issue and create clean spaces by involving other residents and communities.
What happened in the last 3 months?
In the last 3 months, residents of BTM Layout, JP Nagar, Jayanagar, North Main Road, Yelahanka, HRBR Layout and Indiranagar have been reporting garbage dumps to the BBMP officials of their area using the tool.
Five spots have been cleaned in the BTM wards while many others are a work in progress.
“BTM layout has seen a drastic change from the BBMP officials, Surya and Sharan have not only cleared five spots but also beautified them with rangoli and planting pots. BBMP officials also patrolled the cleared sites until late at night to hold the violators who were dumping garbage. At BTM Layout, it took only six citizens to come together and create the change that they wanted to make,,” said Chiku Agarwal, a resident of BTM Layout and Senior Engagement Associate at Jhatkaa.org.
The tool aims to attain zero dump spots by making the reporting of these black spots to the BBMP authorities easier. It also allows residents to initiate dialogue with ward marshals, Junior Health Inspectors and Assistant Executive Engineers to ensure that the cleared sites are not littered.
The tool was designed with the conscious awareness that garbage management is not simple. It is so primarily because maintaining relationships between different stakeholders such as BBMP officials and citizens is not easy. However, the NCB tool has enabled citizens and BBMP officials to collaboratively create neighbourhoods with nearly zero dumping spots.
How citizens can be a part to create a change?
If you are a resident of Bangalore frustrated by garbage mismanagement in your neighbourhood, sign up on the website https://clean-bengaluru.jhatkaa.org/reports and start reporting the garbage spots on the tool and share the link with BBMP.
To report a garbage,
- Citizens can report on the website: https://clean-bengaluru.jhatkaa.org/reports
- Contact the BBMP official of your area and share the reported garbage link (the numbers of BBMP officials is available on the website)
- Share the link of the garbage spot from the website with BBMP officials and find long term solutions.
- Create a Squad on the tool and invite residents within 500m of your area to the squad (as like-minded citizens build the city together).
“Your participation helps in creating an impact for our city, you can either join an existing journey of volunteers or you can create a squad for your area on the tool post which Jhatkaa.org team will get in touch with you for collective action,” also shares Chiku from Jhatkaa.org. Take action today for truly improving our public spaces in a collective manner.
“In a particular block, there will be a concerned auto tipper to collect segregated garbage(Wet and dry). Auto tipper will arrive to concern crosses in block starting time 7:00 am to 10:15 am. In this time auto tippers have 15 minutes in each cross were one auto tipper collects 650 to 700 households. Main challenge is time management in Bangalore where offices will start by 9:00 am or 10:30 public will leave there houses by 8:00 am so we’re not able to source segregation and proper door-to-door collection.
If the public goes to the office early they can keep segregated garbage in their building in two Dustbin were other tenants also can utilise then our driver will collect the garbage.” as said by Surya, Junior Health Inspector BBMP
