18th March, 2012
Adjoining Goodwill Apartments is a layout called Binny Layout. The very lane adjacent to the apartment complex has a gutter for the flow of rainwater. This gutter is frequently used as a dumping ground and has an assortment of garbage ranging from household waste, thrown there in tied up plastic bags, to leaves and dried up vegetative matter. Armed with gloves and dust masks, we set about cleaning this gutter. The leaves were raked up using trowels and sacks. It took us a couple of evenings to finish the task. Once the clean-up was done, we put up posters that implored people not to litter that place. The posters were lettered in both English and Kannada. The printing of these posters was very kindly sponsored by Mr Mahendra Munot, the owner of Maruthi Medicals.
Adjoining Goodwill Apartments is a layout called Binny Layout. The very lane adjacent to the apartment complex has a gutter for the flow of rainwater. This gutter is frequently used as a dumping ground and has an assortment of garbage ranging from household waste, thrown there in tied up plastic bags, to leaves and dried up vegetative matter. Armed with gloves and dust masks, we set about cleaning this gutter. The leaves were raked up using trowels and sacks. It took us a couple of evenings to finish the task. Once the clean-up was done, we put up posters that implored people not to litter that place. The posters were lettered in both English and Kannada. The printing of these posters was very kindly sponsored by Mr Mahendra Munot, the owner of Maruthi Medicals.
The clean-up
Do not litter
The album that contains a few pictures of this clean-up can be accessed here.
On performing this clean-up, we saw that the gutter that we cleaned with backbreaking labour was dirty again in a few weeks. We then realised that there was no alternative for residents to drop off their daily garbage because BBMP had done away with public dustbins to encourage door-to-door collection of waste. The pourakarmikas who are carrying out this collection themselves use gutters such as the one we cleaned up for dumping waste and a truck would come and pick it up periodically. The flaws in this system were highlighted and a note was sent to the commissioner of BBMP, which went ignored. We realised that the clean-up of our streets requires our meeting with the local corporater and his cooperation would be essential for its success.
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