It was just a two years back , that ‘Garden City’ Bengaluru earned for itself a title of ‘Garbage City’ when the city made international news as Garbage Heaps could be seen in every part of the city , when the landfills for Garbage stopped collection.

From there on the journey has been one success story , which promises to make it a role model for other municipal corporations. The reversal from Garbage City to Re-Greening has largely been a silent journey till this week when the government announced the city’s achievement of  becoming the First city in the Country to compost 50% of its solid wet waste . With a reserve of over 9000 MT’s of Compost  , the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) flagged off trucks this week to various districts as this compost will serve as high quality Manure for the farmers ahead of the sowing season.

Speaking to Policy Pulse , Karnataka’s agriculture minister Krishna Byre Gowda said ,” It’s been a collective success story as we were able to find a mechanism for selling such huge quantity of compost manure for farm use”. His ministry is coordinating online bookings for the Compost of Bengaluru Corporation. The corporation is selling the compost at Rs 200 per ton if farmers come to Bengaluru to collect it themselves or Rs 800 per MT if it has to be transported to their fields. Enthused by the demand , Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike is setting up compost purchasing centres in all the 198 wards where citizens can sell their compost.

BBMP Joint Commissioner Sarfaraz Khan told Policy Pulse, “We have started organising compost ‘santhe’ (gathering)   every week where we educate people on composting. We invite vendors who sell compost-making pots, leaf shredding machines, vertical garden kit and liquid fertilisers.”

The journey for the City towards handling the solid waste and generating  has seen active involvement of several concerned citizens and  private orgnizations.  At the fore=front has been the passion of several concerned citizens who were not comfortable at the city getting the tag of Garbage city. Priyanka Raju , a Technology educationist in Bengaluru convinced her neighborhood  to start composting the wet waste . “It was not easy to convince a large majority as they refused to segregate the waste . But once we started and over the weeks , they saw that we were able to produce high quality manure from the wet waste which we started using for potted plants  and lawns in our area”. Several such success stories soon started replicating in the city where Green citizens joined hands to reduce the burden on the civic corporation which no longer had to transport wet waste from many neighbourhoods

It was the entry of  private initiatives like Bangalore Political Action Committee ( BPAC) founded by the who’s who of the city whichtook composting to the next higher level.  Geetha  G an entrepreneur who has made a range of eco-gifting solutions with support from BPAC. Geetha and several other volunteers partnered with BPAC and the Residents’ Welfare Associations in setting up composting units in several part of the city.   Their first initiative , Citizens For Sustainability  ( CifoS)  has become a case study. Equipped with shredders and  composting plants , this unit  handles over a ton of waste every week.

Geetha G  told Policy Pulse , “Initially I felt a little odd telling people , but over a period of time have started taking it as a mission to involve more people. BPAC has supported us in several ways. We go about educating and informing the citizens of the importance of Re-Greening Bengaluru with Solid Waste Management”

The initiative has also created a new entrepreneurs and business opportunities .  Stonesoup , a team of women entrepreneurs have developed  Compost bricks , Composting Bins etc which are sold across city to help people handle wet waste at home.   These have become starter kits for many house wives .

The challenge has only yet begun to show results . The BBMP inspired by people’s participation is now looking at investing further in the projects of recycling wet waste. BBMP Commissioner Manjunath Prasad has announced grand plans for 198 wards to have waste convertors. The forthcoming budget has special provisions for supporting them . Speaking to Policy Pulse he said ,” It reduces the burden of transportation of wet waste and also brings down the waste management costs. We are committed to ensure the compost is used for re-greening our parks and also for farms use”

Even in the Urban crisis that the city has faced , Bengaluru and its people have shown the spirit of the city in living upto the tag of being an enterprising city and with 50% solid waste issue handled effectively , making plans for the next fifty percent waste management may not be a difficult task.