Bengaluru’s trash is no man’s treasure

Many years after dumping of waste in landfills was stopped, residents who live around them continue to suffer from various health issues

“Seven years ago, 20 trucks full of garbage started to come to our village. We did not know at the time that this was the beginning of a dangerous threat to our lives. We only got to know after four years when our borewell water turned dark, and I had to undergo a surgery after an infection in my throat,” said Jayram Xavier, a 65-year-old resident of Bingipura village, who is staying near the abandoned landfill site in southern Bengaluru.

Mr. Xavier, who has been a resident of the locality for the last 40 years, said that after repeated protests, only four years ago, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) stopped dumping garbage. However, residents in the area continue to suffer.

The BBMP had to shut down the site following persistent protests from residents. After this, residents are asking the authorities to turn the abandoned landfill into a mini forest and rejuvenate the nearby lake so that the pollution created by the landfill will be controlled, but residents complain the authorities have not done anything so far.

It has been more than 20 years since the civic body drafted the first Solid Waste Management (SWM) rules in 2000, but the BBMP is yet to implement the rules, which includes avoiding landfill dumping. Instead, the BBMP continues to dump in landfills and is searching for new quarries to dump the city’s waste.

The journey towards the Mittaganahalli landfill, one of the city’s largest, where tonnes of solid waste gets dumped by the BBMP every day, starts with an unbearable stench. Those who live in the vicinity of this landfill in Bellahalli and Mittaganahalli villages are plagued by various health problems and infrastructural worries. If locals are to be believed, at least eight members have died in the last couple of months after developing ailments due to the polluted water and air.

The Bellahalli quarry was closed in 2019, but the closure provided no relief to the residents as the Mittaganahalli landfill, where the dumping began around three years ago, is at a distance where it can still cause them problems.

The residents in around 2,000 homes in this area previously only depended on borewell water for their drinking needs as the Cauvery water connection has still not reached there. Now, with the leachate seeping into the groundwater, they are forced to rely on water tankers and water cans. This has automatically led to a price rise with the water tankers charging up to ₹500 per load.