Bangalore's Garbage Problem

The Business Standard has published a good article about Bangalore’s garbage problem that is such a significant part of the stray dog story throughout India. The article paints a picture of rapid, uncontrolled development fuelled by the great success of the high-tech industry, but with greater wealth has come more garbage and no adequate systems for dealing with it. Apparently, the new wealth has also brought an indifferent attitude far removed from the social responsibility that more traditional community living engenders.

Informal dumping and burning within the city and in the nearby rural areas has caused air and water pollution as well as supporting increasing populations of street dogs, pigs, rats and mosquitoes. The situation is becoming desperate with local residents blocking garbage trucks from dumping in their area and industrial action by garbage workers.

It seems fair to say that Bangalore’s waste management is a mess.

The article ends on a tentatively optimistic note of what could be achieved if the efforts of the garbage pickers who earn a meagre living from collecting recyclable waste could be encouraged, together with other projects that aim to put organic waste to better use. But until that happens there will be continual complaints and articles about the “stray dog menace” in Bangalore.

Learn more about the lives and issue of unowned dogs in my e-book ”A Stray View” available from Bangkok Books (readable as .pdf on any computer)