BENGALURU: Solid Waste Management Round Table (SWMRT), a public interest collective of SWM practitioners, has issued a statement asking the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) to redraft SWM bye-laws after holding public consultation. The draft was published on September 26 and objections and feedback, if any, will be received till October 31.
“A review of draft bye-laws shows that if these were to be implemented, it will completely undermine the decade-long efforts of the Karnataka High Court and the BBMP itself to streamline the solid waste management practices. The bye-laws, in its present form, is an attempt to bring back the contractor monopoly,” the release stated. The statement highlights five observations - no intention to implement zero waste, lopsided economics and unfair protection, back to old monopoly contract system, no focus on in-situ or ward level processing of waste and no public disclosure and lack of public consultation.
“BBMP has a processing capacity of about 1,200 tonnes per day. It is therefore unclear how they will gear up to process 5,700 tonnes other than by dumping the waste. There is no road map to stop or do away with dumping and no obligation of processing has been committed to. There is no inclination towards zero landfills which is the requirement of SWM, 2016,” it stated.