BENGALURU: There is a reason why television programmes that show food factories are a hit: the streamlined process, spick and span equipment and the perfect tempo of workers on an assembly line is fascinating. Believe it or not, processing garbage in this manner can be equally compelling, too. Two waste processing units in Bengaluru, which recently got upgraded, are proof to this.
In late 2016, waste management experts from the Netherlands-based Sweep Smart, started working with a local vendor running a dry-waste management centre in Rajajinagar (backed by Hasiru Dala) and the drywaste management unit of the Electronic City Industrial Township Authority (ELCITA). At the end of their project, which was this month, the centres got radically overhauled, and can now match up to European standards of waste management.
Cofounder of Sweep Smart, Niels van den Hoek, and his six-member team helped transform the centres to obtain better efficiency and meet safety and quality standards. “Our aim is to turn waste into happiness,“ Hoek said. Though based in Netherlands, the social enterprise works in India, setting up smart and inclusive waste management systems for the informal sector.
In its new avatar, the waste man agement facility in Electronic City challenges the notion that waste management is a dirty business. At this facility, about 3.5 tonnes of waste collected from about 80 companies everyday is further segregated into 30 or more categories for maximum recycling. Clean floors, neatly organised and labelled storage spaces, clear sign-boards make it look like a creative workspace. “Just because we are working with waste doesn't mean that the place has to be untidy ,“ Hoek explained.
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