ABSTRACT

Bangalore city generates around 3600 tons/day of solid waste and a major constituent is organic (>70%).  The quantum of wastes generated is far greater than the capacity of the permitted waste treatment and disposal sites.  As these sites are quite far-off, many of the trucks dump at unauthorized locations to reduce their transportation costs or meet their daily targets.  To understand overall patterns, sources and reasons for dumping, an attempt is made to find the locations, composition and to assess the area of garbage spread at unauthorized dumps in and around the city.  The field survey was conducted during August 2010 to April 2012 where in the accuracy of three techniques (visual estimates, step measurement and Google Earth) were assessed to rapidly estimate area of garbage spread.  The total number of unauthorized dumps located outside the core area was 393 and inside core area was 303.  The results indicated that the visual estimates to determine the location and area of garbage spread was better in identifying locations of unauthorized dumps in a very shortwhile and can be deployed to assess performance of various mega-cities in transition to good solid-waste management

Keywords: Unauthorized dump site, Waste, Method, Locations, Area.