Bangalore's garbage turns into organic manure

BANGALORE: Over 12,000 trucks of Bangalore’s garbage find their way to Hassan, Chikmagalur, Doddaballapur and Kerala annually. Not in the form of stinking dump, but as sweet-smelling organic manure on which cash crops like coffee and grapes thrive.
Dr Vaman Acharya transforms the putrefied and rotting vegetable peels and food wastes from Bangalore’s homes and carcass leftovers from butcheries into organic manure.
Situated on the outskirts of the city, his obscure metal hangar that came into existence in 1995 and was once a six-acre banana plantation, now houses much of the city’s reject.
‘‘I felt that this was one national resource being burned wastefully on roads. Everyone only wants to get rid of it,’’ Dr Vaman, a former assistant surgeon with the Maharashtra government told TNN. But he’s a modest man. ‘‘What I’m dealing with is not more than five per cent of Bangalore’s garbage. The city produces over 3,000 tonne per day.’’
‘‘The garbage given by the BCC is first heaped in a yard and sprayed with bacterial cultures to aid composting. Every 7 to 8 days we turn the heaps over to oxygenate it. The garbage composts at temperatures up to 70 degrees and the size of the heaps reduce,’’ explains Dr Vaman.
While the organic matter gets composted, it is the plastic covers, bottles, rags, glass and large wood pieces that remain and need to be sieved. The fine organic matter is later mixed with neem cakes or fungal cultures based on his clients’ specifications.
But plastic remnants are proving to be a greater problem. ‘‘BCC initially agreed to dispose off the plastic, but does not have landfills for them. I tried melting it into plastic cubes used in making pipes, but the process is not economical,’’ he says.