Garbage is a paradox in Bengaluru. Even though garbage dumping and burning in street corners is illegal, and in spite of the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) outlining penalties for those who violate rules, the practice continues to be rampant in the city.
Garbage contractors, who are tasked with collecting waste from bulk generators like apartments, often dump the waste on the side of unused roads and set it on fire. “It is a cycle of collecting, dumping and burning waste. The contractors and pourakarmikas are under pressure to clear the waste they collect and often set fire to the waste instead of properly disposing it in landfills,” explains Kathyayini Chamaraj, an activist based in the city who focuses on solid waste management.
The most common forms of burning garbage is the burning of leaf litter. “Since those handling waste believe that burning leaf litter is harmless, this tends to be commonly burnt in the fall season. However, burning leaf litter is equally toxic and causes air pollution,” adds Kathyayini.
In addition to leaf litter, several other waste materials are also burnt on the sides of roads. This leads to the release of methane, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide, sulphur dioxide and carcinogenic hydrocarbons into the air. Burning of garbage is also classified as the third biggest contributor to greenhouse emissions in the country.
According to a crowd-sourced map compiled by Jhatkaa.org, an organisation which has been campaigning against garbage burning for over two years now, garbage burning is still happening in at least 40 wards in Bengaluru. There are times when the landfills themselves catch fire, like the fire at the Belahalli quarry that occurred on April 11.
People involved in disposing off the waste, particularly pourakarmikas or civic waste workers who are asked to burn the waste by their contractors, are unaware of the health risks posed by the burning of garbage. “We are asked to burn garbage at times by contractors. For instance, some of my colleagues burnt the waste they collected on the side of Old Madras Road recently, but they are unaware of the dangers of what they are doing,” says Lakshmi, a pourakarmika from Indiranagar.
Burning garbage is a double-edged sword for these pourakarmikas not only because it is illegal but also because the BBMP does not provide safety equipment like gloves for them to manage waste.
Studies have shown that burning garbage poses serious health risks. The US Public Health Service has identified 22 diseases linked to improper waste management. These diseases include asthma, heart attacks and emphysema, which have been specifically linked to burning of garbage.
“PM 2.5 materials cross the air alveolar membrane, which is the filter of the lung, and are able to get deposited in the blood vessels of the heart, which initiates the process of clot deposition. In a short period of time, this leads to clot formation in the heart and along with that, any sudden increase in pollution levels will lead to exaggeration of that particular block and lead to heart attacks,” explains Dr Rahul Patil, a cardiologist at the Jayadeva Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences and Research in Bengaluru.
Dr Rahul, who is also associated with the research wing at Jayadeva Hospitals, says that in the last five years, statistics indicate a huge rise in heart attack cases in the under 40 age group. “Our records indicated a 22% increase and often they come without common factors linked to heart attacks like hypertension, obesity and diabetes,” he says.