TimesView BBMP’s revised notification is another step towards streamlining the gargantuan task of waste management and reining in offenders. Public and private gatherings are a large contributor to Bengaluru’s trash burden with rampant plastic use and haphazard dumping or burning of garbage. While the Palike has done well by laying down stringent guidelines, it has a bigger task now: to ensure that violators don’t go scot-free. Citizens, on their part, need to shed their not-in-my-backyard attitude and become more waste-wise by adopting the three Rs — reduce, reuse and recycle — for a sustainable future. BENGALURU: In order to curb the garbage menace, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike ( BBMP ) has issued a revised notification making sustainable solid waste management compulsory at public and private events. It mandates segregation at source and compliance with the plastic ban, among other things. Failure to abide by the norms will attract penalties ranging from Rs 2,500 to Rs 2 lakh.The notification issued by BBMP commissioner N Manjunatha Prasad on March 1 said it’s been found that organisers of many events held in public and private places aren’t following solid waste management rules (SWM) and plastic waste management rules 2016. “It has been noted that in many such events, the generated waste is not being segregated and the plastic ban is being flouted,” the revised notification read.It said collection, transportation and disposal of mixed waste, including residual food, disposables like flowers and packaging material wrappers, and single-use plastic and water bottles was not in compliance with law. Consequently, a huge amount of disposables, plastics and mixed waste was either being dumped or burnt causing grave harm to the environment, the notification pointed out.Prasad said while ideally the SWM Rules 2016 apply to every individual for the purpose of regulating events, guidelines under the notification shall be applicable to events with a gathering of 25 or more people at a place during which food/beverages would be served or products sold, leading to generation of waste like paper pamphlets, packaging material or sanitary waste from toilets.The notification covers functions, seminars, conferences and get-togethers of social, cultural or religious nature held at public/private places. Prasad clarified that public events are those that take place in venues like fair grounds, open grounds, parks and public-utility earmarked lands belonging to the BBMP, whereas private events are organised within private premises, including educational or religious institutions, sports stadia, hotels, apartments and residencies.

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