RWAs compost dry leaves, but they still burn in street corners

Bengaluru: The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) may have introduced stringent guidelines to curb the burning of dry leaves, yet pockets of the city still witness this harmful practice.

Several residents’ welfare associations (RWAs) have been creating sustainable ways of disposing of the leaves and digging composting pits in their layouts to deposit the dry leaves.

DH spoke to the BBMP, NGOs, and RWAs to understand dry leaf waste management practices in the city.

Sunil Thomas, residing in Horamavu, shared his community’s efforts to use dry leaves and twigs from plants for composting for personal gardens and individual use.

Despite these efforts, he is concerned about the persisting practice of dry leaves burning. “Dumping of these leaves in landfills is also a setback to strengthen and streamline solid waste management system in the city,” he added.

Rajkumar Dugar, from Citizens for Citizens in Vasanthanagar, said dry leaves in their locality goes to a composting pit in the Sampangi
Ramaswamy Temple on Cunningham Road.

“We created a metal enclosure in the Sampangi Ramaswamy Temple premises to collect wet waste and dry leaves to form a composting pit. This is later used as fertilisers for the plants,” he said.

Sandhya Narayan, representing Solid Waste Management Round Table (SWMRT), mentioned multiple levels of composting with dry leaves.

“At the street level, with people who are interested in managing it in front of their houses, we have a ‘Swaccha Beedi’ programme. They buy and get mesh composters sponsored, collect the leaves that have fallen in front of their houses , and drop them in the composter,” she said.

Give dry leaves to BBMP

A senior BBMP official told DH that the pourakarmikas collect fallen leaves, including the dried ones, from the roadside.

“Dried leaves are transported with other wet waste in our auto tippers and later compactors carry them to our waste processing plants. We have about eight waste processing plants, including a private facility. These leaves help control the leachate that flows out of our wet waste and also help produce better quality manure,” said the official.

“At the waste processing plants, this waste is converted into manure, which will be taken to the Karnataka Compost Development Corporation (KCDC) from where it is sold to farmers at subsidised rates.”

The composter at the Sampangi Ramaswamy Temple on Cunningham Road.