Swachh Kolar: District admin does fantastic work; the city is now a waste-less, world-class model

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It all began here at the city corporation office.

It all began here at the district administration office.

It’s hard to think of fitting opening lines for this story without littering them with adjectives. I am taking refuge in this hair-raising conversation from Interstellar to tell a tale of a tiny little spot on our own beloved Planet Earth.

 

Prof. Brand: There are so many reasons why our communications might not be getting through.

Murph: I know Professor. I’m not sure, what I’m more afraid of. Them never coming back or… coming back to find we’ve failed.

Prof. Brand: Then let’s succeed. So, back to the fourth iteration. Let’s run it through some new fields.

Murph: With respect Professor, we’ve tried that hundreds of times.

Prof. Brand: It only has to work once, Murph. Continue reading →

Sobha Althea-Azalea’s green campaign attracts 4 Infosys teams

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infy1Sometime ago, our waste management and composting methods attracted attention from none other than Infosys. In all, a team each from Bangalore and Cochin and two teams from two Chennai campuses visited our complex this March. A researcher from the New York University also accompanied the teams. Continue reading →

Sobha Althea-Azalea: Mandur crisis affects us, but just a little

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Giving back to where it belongs: All the kitchen waste and garden waste is turned into rich organic manure and given back to where it belongs.

Giving back to where it belongs: All the kitchen waste and garden waste is turned into rich organic manure and given back to where it belongs.

Going by the media reports, the Karnataka government certainly doesn’t have a solution in sight for the Mandur landfill crisis. No government wants to drag a reluctant multitude towards a safe future by roiling up the system and suffer the drubbing during elections. Better safe than sorry, right?

Amidst such a sordid state of affairs, I feel immensely proud to congratulate the residents of Sobha Althea-Azalea, Yelahanka, for achieving multiple milestones in just two years. Continue reading →

Mandur landfill crisis revisits: Luxury of peacetime over, let’s stop being deliberately callous

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The reality in Mandur. (Pic: The Hindu)

The reality in Mandur. (Pic: The Hindu)

Recently, I made an early-morning trip to some nurseries around Lalbagh with a friend to buy plants for our apartment garden. By forenoon, we had done most of our work but couldn’t resist the desire to step into yet another large nursery studded with beautiful succulents. As we went around enjoying the fragrance of those green little beauties, especially gardenias, the nursery staff got busy loading the green ‘waste’ into a BBMP vehicle. Some 4-5 workers went on feeding the truck for at least an hour.

When we asked, they said it was headed to Mandur landfill. Continue reading →

We manage 21 types of waste in Sobha Althea-Azalea, every day…

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How would you feel if a housekeeper trained by you gives back lessons on how to differentiate between many types of plastic waste?

This is what happened a week ago when I went down to the basement to check if things were in order. This is where secondary segregation of our dry waste collected from each household happens every day.

When I asked Lakshmi, our housekeeper, why plastic waste was lying in 3-4 separate bins, she said type A fetches more money than type B… She and the remaining 11 housekeepers know it better than perhaps I will ever know.

The result? We are segregating TWENTYONE types of waste every day at Sobha Althea-Azalea! Continue reading →

Bangalore’s garbage explosion: Segregation at source is the only solution

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Recycle-get this...

Everything is garbage until it is segregated. However, despite a never-before crisis staring it in its face, the government doesn’t seem to have realised that there can be answers to what seem to be gigantic problems. As for the one that has pushed Bangalore and of course, surrounding villages like Mandur and Mavallipura over the edge, the answer is simple: The problem has to end where it begins. Continue reading →

Trash issues: Before we seek divine intervention…

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Gift Wrap

If festivals are all about finding a means to get closer to divinity, then why is it that they are often associated with our irresponsible attitude towards Nature?

Last week I read about the unimaginable trail of pollution Christmas celebrations leave behind in the UK. Some estimates say that nearly three million tonnes of waste hits landfills by the time the festivities wind up. Continue reading →