People in Bangalore have been known to use several novel methods to keep their neighborhood clean, but residents of HSR Layout have come up with a rather simple way to deal with trash offenders: they go and have a polite conversation with them.

The idea, said R S Hiremath, president, HSR [...]]]>

The Revolution Starts at Home

People in Bangalore have been known to use several novel methods to keep their neighborhood clean, but residents of HSR Layout have come up with a rather simple way to deal with trash offenders: they go and have a polite conversation with them.

The idea, said R S Hiremath, president, HSR Layout Sector 2 Residents’ Welfare Association, is not to reason with those who dump garbage in someone else’s yard but to understand them. “We want to know their psychology,” he told Bangalore Mirror.

Every Saturday for the last two weeks, five volunteers from the 10-member association five people have been standing near empty sites in the layout, and watching out for trash offenders. “Around 6 am, maids or housewives come to throw garbage.

Some do it because they have no  choice, but schools, hospitals, and shops come because they haven’t set up their own waste collection systems,” said the 48-year-old Hiremath.

Volunteers go up and casually talk to people casually dumping garbage. They try to persuade the offenders to stop the practice.

ROUND TWO

The group plans to print information collected from such interactions on handbills, and offer solutions to illegal dumping. One solution is to install more wayside garbage bins, and the association is working on that. “In HSR Layout Sector 2, we have about 400 homes. We will give out handbills to all of them,” he said.

Rithika Tiwari, another member of the association, said that garbage collection was not organised enough. “We have found out that many homes don’t have a garbage collection process. Also, we have few dustbins in the area,” she said.

Dr Meenakshi Bharat, who spearheaded a source segregation and solid waste management campaign at Malleswaram, said, “This campaign will help. HSR Layout is a fairly new layout, with a number of individual houses. The residents should know how to handle their garbage.”

Hiremath and his men also plan to talk to institutional offenders and help them set up garbage disposal systems.

Source: Bangalore Mirror, By-Gayatri Nair