It’s high time we got out of this landfill mentality

Have you spotted a garbage truck lately? Is it collecting trash, or is it simply parked in a dark corner? Do you see the heaps gathering about town again? Is the news full of Mandur and Mavallipura once again? It was all predictable. And the sooner we accept that, the better the city will be.
First, we must get away from the 'landfill' mentality. BBMP, aided by the state government , prefers to search for new landfill sites in different parts of the metropolitan region rather than focus on reducing the generation of trash in the first place.Each new location is simply another spot for more trouble.
A system that has become used to transportation of waste naturally resists a new order in which transport is not very important but waste handling skill is the priority. Which is why we keep reading about resistance of councillors as well as contractors to any new way of managing waste.
How can this be overcome? Simple. Bring the citizens into the picture. As long as we leave it to administrators and elected representatives to devise a new system, it will be impossible to override the vested interests of the contractors, and the collusion with politics. In a democracy, there is one obvious group which, if properly empowered , can wipe away old entrenched interests . This group — the voters — must be made the centre-piece of the system.
The Karnataka Municipal Corporations Act, the Community Participation Law and the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act all require the participation of citizens in overseeing solid waste management through ward committees in each ward. The government totally ignored these laws, and not even bothered to set up the ward committees.
Why? Because citizens have expectations of performance , and therefore our political system, which is used to under-performance or nonperformance , naturally obstructs citizens’ participation. But there is no way around this problem except by properly engaging the citizens. Let us devise a system in which landfill-avoidance is the principle.
The state government can push this along by doing one simple thing. Ban the movement of waste across municipal boundaries and force BBMP to take responsibility for waste generated within its territory. A ‘Dumping Saaku’ (dumping enough) legislation will once and for all close the option of creating more Mandurs , and force us to look within ourselves for the change we wish to see.
(The writer is a member of ABIDe)