[Reader-list] Reading Through the History of Waste Management and Inclusion of Wastepickers in Bengaluru

[Kabir Khan]

Reading Through the History of Waste Management and Inclusion of
Wastepickers in Bengaluru
<http://wastenarratives.com/2015/11/09/reading-through-the-history-of-waste-management-and-inclusion-of-wastepickers-in-bengaluru/>

*Notes from Nayandahalli
<http://wastenarratives.com/category/notes-from-nayandahalli/> *

Anselm Rosario is a known name. Story of waste management, wastepickers'
welfare is incomplete without him. His biographical sketch is an important
chapter in the history of informal labor mobilization. He started working
on waste and wastepickers at a time when the cities of developing countries
were opening their eyes to modernity. As a part of *Notes from Nayandahalli
<http://wastenarratives.com/category/notes-from-nayandahalli/> *series we
are presenting the story of Anselm Rosario.

Anslem Rosario completed his graduation studies from St. Joseph College
affiliated to Bangalore University in the early 70’s and enrolled for a
certificate program in hotel management. After several years in the hotel
industry, Anslem left to seek true meaning of spirituality and was
initiated in the *Transcendental Meditation technique(TM)* in seventies by
His Holiness Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, founder of TM movement.  After
completion of the course, he graduated as a teacher of Transcendental
Meditation and worked as a full timer and joined various campaigns of TM
movement in Madhya Pradesh, Assam, Karnataka and Goa and during that time
taught more than 5000 people in TM. He also completed an Advanced Training
Course at Shankaracharya Nagar, Rishikesh, before returning to Bangalore.

In the early 1980s, he worked as development officer for the All India
Catholic Union in Karnataka and Goa, and moved on to work on urban poor
issues. Observing the most runaway or abandoned street children took to
waste-picking as a means to survive, he founded the *Ragpickers Education
and Development Scheme* in 1985. The scheme had several components
including a night shelter, which was constructed at Scared Hearts Church,
also included washing facilities, food and access to basic medical care; a
Fair Price Shop that respected the children’s need economic independence
and purchased the materials collected by the children at market rate.  This
was followed with a new Street Contact Education Programs to reach out to
children involved in waste-picking. In 1987, he moved to set-up Mythri
Sarva Seva Samithi, as he wanted a secular institution. In 1989, through
the organization he started collecting waste directly from homes, to ensure
that children are free to study in the mornings. Separate collection of dry
and wet waste ensured. The program also sought to legitimize informal waste
workers contribution and pioneered the integration of waste-pickers in the
city’s solid Waste Management. He is the recipient of “Ashoka Fellowship”
(1989) from Ashoka Innovators for the Public, Arlington, Virgina, USA .He
received the “*Public Relations Award 1993 for Environment”* for his
significant contribution to the creation of cleaner urban habitat by Public
Relation Society of India, Bangalore Chapter. He also received the
*“Environment
Award for 1995”*, by the Karnataka Pollution Control Board, Government of
Karnataka.

*In an interview to Radio Active CR 90.4 MHz, Anslem talks about waste and
waste management, his personal experiences on decentralization of waste
management, the markets for waste and the need for integration of
waste-pickers. Edited excerpt:*

*Mr. Rosario, tell us something about yourself and how you went into this
association with waste-pickers*

I graduated in Science and then enrolled for a program in Hotel Management.
In the course I am came across an introduction to yoga and that was my
first introduction to Indian Spirituality. That was the time, when most
young people were looking for something meaningful, many found it in drugs,
but we were looking for the actual stuff. We were into music and whatever
was happening around at that time all. This was fascinating for me. I gave
my course and started learning yoga and started looking for gurus who would
give me that kind of knowledge. It was a long search. Then I went and
joined *Transcendental Meditation technique(TM)* by His Holiness Maharishi
Mahesh Yogi, founder of TM movement. I was trained as teacher and I spent 8
years in the organization, travelling all over India teaching meditation.
When I came back to Bangalore, I felt that spirituality is ok, but we need
to do something real. My work started early 80s; I joined some groups,
working with workers in City Markets, who carried the sacks. I would go
every weekend. I felt there was something that I need to do. That’s when I
looked at waste-pickers, popularly called rag pickers. We started
interacting with them and gradually the scenario changed, as by then
plastics came in. While the males went into sorting, the women and children
went for collection of waste. Initially I taught the children were all
orphans, later we discovered that everybody had families. They were second
or third generation migrants from different parts of the state. In 84-85, I
thought I should do something for the kids, and not a charity approach, but
something more with a developmental approach.

The life was around junk shops or scrap shops and then we started *Rag pickers
Education and Development Scheme* in 1985 in Sacred Heart’s Church, we
really had to negotiate with the church for a place. And we put up a
shelter from the bricks, of a demolished building. It wasn’t an orphanage,
rather a sleeping space for children. In the nights they would sleep and
disappear in the mornings. That’s when I started realizing where they were
going, to pick up waste material. The shelter ran for two three years. And
couple of things happened here we realized that every kid we rehabilitated
or sending them home, ten were coming on to the street, we realized that we
needed a comprehensive approach,  so we could not go beyond 40-50 kids It
was also becoming difficult, as we had to spend the night them.  Reflecting
on this, we decided we need to move towards a secular approach and that’s
when we started the *Mythri Sarva Seva Samithi* in 1987. At this point in
time, I got curious about waste and started to ask questions on waste,
whose responsibility, what is happening to waste. At that’s when we got to
know about Bangalore City Corporation (BCC), as it was called then. They
were spending about 6 crores, huge amount even at that time, though waste
was not so visible as such. For us the interest was if kids could pick up
dry waste from household and wet waste could be composted near the point of
generation, they can earn a little and also study in the available time.

I don’t remember the dates properly but late eighties, early 90s we
launched this project in 300 households in Jayanagar, door-to-door
collection, and in the park that was given to us after two years of
negotiation for composting. For composting we took the help of professors
from University of Agricultural Sciences. Lot of experiments went on.
Infact the first time we introduced worms into the compost pits, their
bodies were bloated up because of the heat. In another incident, when we
were advised to put water into the pit, the entire thing started smelling
and people complained. So it took a lot of experiments in stabilizing this.
In 1989-90, our program was picked by BBC “Earth File” and started airing
these capsules and many people across started calling me. That was the
starting point of door-to-door collection, segregation of source and to a
large extent in that I can say Bangalore was the pioneer in integration of
waste pickers, resident and community based approach to integration of
waste-pickers.

Almitra Patel got involved in 1990-91, we were part of Swambina and Almitra
took it to another level- national level. For us the challenge was how to
promote decentralized approach at community level. Infact, we already had
KCDC in 1986, which did not work for more than six months.

This is my brief background and later in 2003 many likeminded groups came
up in Bangalore.

At that time I was experimenting with closed system called Land Lab in
Mahadevpura. In 2008, I got involved with Waste Netherlands, which gave me
exposure across 18 different countries. At one point in time, I was the
Chairperson directing integrated sustainable solid waste management. Continued
here...
<http://wastenarratives.com/2015/11/09/reading-through-the-history-of-waste-management-and-inclusion-of-wastepickers-in-bengaluru/>


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