"Living near Urban landfills" UP504 podcast

This podcast is an academic podcast prepared as part of UP504 Urban history and theory, by Sharanya Varma. The podcast questions the equity, accountability and environmental concerns in solid waste management, specifically for the city of Bangalore. The implications of hazardous waste segregations are faced by minority communities (urban poor) that live in the outskirts of the city, displaces to these corners because of lack of equity. Approximately 90% of the urban solid waste generated daily end up in such places.

The podcast brings out the intersectionality of Urban waste management, and those who live near these garbage landfill mountains. These toxic places, called garbage dumps, landfills, or piles of garbage, are the dark hillsides of India's bustling and ‘fastest-growing cities, homes, and workplaces of tens of thousands of people. Bangalore is the victim of large-scale, mostly illegal/ inequitable dumping of about 5,000 tonnes of solid waste generated daily by cities. For years, they have implicitly endured the horrific effects of Bangalore's numbness. Some villagers have died as a direct result of such toxic waste deposits, and many more are suffering from various infectious diseases and chronic illnesses. This terrifying practice of dumping waste has destroyed village communities, farmlands, pastures, forests, and water sources, affecting thousands of lives.

The podcast features the story of Dasappa a farmer, a resident in Mavalipura one of the largest landfills in Bangalore. It also features excerpts from an article by Sandhya Venkateshwaran on Managing Waste: Ecological, Economic and Social Dimensions, and research by Leo Saldana and Bhargavi Rao of Bangalore based group Environment support group (ESG). The final segment of the podcast talks about solutions and resident initiatives by citizen groups in Bangalore. From personal experiences of being an active member of the “Solid waste management round table” and segments of an interview with the compost queen of Bangalore, Vani Murthy. The podcast is based on qualitative research methodology, and involved in-depth interactions and discussions with residents, agency officials and conservancy workers, detailed examinations of secondary literature and intensive personal field observations.

Citations and references-

Sandhya Venkateswaran. (1994). Managing Waste: Ecological, Economic and Social Dimensions. Economic and Political Weekly, 29(45/46), 2907–2911. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4401996

Krithika Srinivasan. (2006). Public, Private and Voluntary Agencies in Solid Waste Management: A Study in Chennai City. Economic and Political Weekly, 41(22), 2259–2267. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4418300

Sahana Goswami and Samrat Basak (2021) Living Near Urban Landfills in India, WRI INDIA, https://wri-india.org/blog/living-near-urban-landfills-india

Christine Lutringer and Shalini Randeria (2017) How Not to Waste a Garbage Crisis: Food Consumption, Solid Waste Management, and Civic Activism in Bangalore/Bengaluru, India, https://journals.openedition.org/poldev/2476

Environmental support group-ESG- https://esgindia.org/

Interview source - founder of solid waste management round tableVani Muthy - http://swmrt.com/team-member/vani-murthi/

Music- Bensounds.com

Images- Cover art- created for the podcast by Sharanya Varma.

Other images used with permission of the photographer.