Mysuru champions waste segregation, Bengaluru struggles to keep up

• Mysuru conferred the Four Leaves Award at CSE’s Convention on Urban Solid Waste Management held in New Delhi
• Had won the cleanest ‘medium’ city award in Swachh Survekshan 2018
• Recipient of CSE’s Clean City Award, 2016
• With segregation levels below 60 per cent, Bengaluru ranks low in the CSE assessment 

New Delhi, June 7, 2018:“Sweeping cities is only a small part of the solution to the problem of keeping our cities clean – what is more important is sustainable treatment, recycle and reuse of the waste that they generate,” said Chandra Bhushan, deputy director general, Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), while announcing the awards for most efficient management and segregation of waste by Indian cities which are members of the Forum of Cities that Segregate. 

CSE has been working with cities to promote and implement source-segregation and decentralized model of waste management. To scale up its impact, CSE had launched the ‘Forum of Cities that Segregate’ on December12, 2017. The Forum now has 26 members – from Karnataka, Mysuru and Bengaluru feature in the list. 

CSE released here today the 2017-18 assessment report of the performance of 20 of these 26 Forum cities. Based on the findings of the assessment report, the best performers were selected and the Leaves Awards conferred on them. 

The cities were assessed based on their performance in the six months since the Forum was launched. The parameters included segregation at source, collection, transportation, wet waste and dry waste processing, adoption of decentralised systems, the inclusion of informal sector in municipal systems and adoption and enforcement of SWM bye-laws and enforcement of Plastic Waste Management Rules, 2016. 

The Karnataka report card

• Mysuru is segregating 80 per cent of its waste at source and has seven zero waste management units. The city has a 200 tonnes per day (TPD) centralised composting facility as well as a sanitary landfill site.
  
  
• According to the Swachh Survekshan 2018 results, Mysuru was adjudged the cleanest in the ‘medium city’ category. 

• Bengaluru gets a low score in CSE’s assessment report – registers segregation levels below 60 per cent. While it reflects good collection and transportation facilities, processing seems to be lax with majority of the waste being treated in centralised composting plants. The three operational quarries in Bellahalli, Bagalur and Mittaganahalli receive over 2,500 TPD of waste. Farmers in neighboring fields have been protesting about the unbearable stench. 

• Both the cities are yet to adopt bye-laws as per the Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016. However, Mysuru fares much better in enforcing the major provisions of the Plastic Waste Management Rules, 2016.

For more details and to access CSE’s resources on waste management, please contact Parul Tiwari of The CSE Media Resource Centre, parul@cseindia.org / 9891838367.