When Hasiru Dala began work to make solid waste management sustainable in Bengaluru back in 2010-13, its co-founder Nalini Shekar had not charted out a path except waste management could not be discussed without waste pickers as stakeholders. More than a decade later, Hasiru Dala has become synonymous with transformation in not only waste management but also a voice and platform of waste pickers.
Building trust within the community, making waste pickers aware of their exploitation, organising and educating them, getting them state government ID cards have been among the tasks that Hasiru Dala embraced. The organisation also worked alongside citizens and officials to formalise their work and make it a key element of the city’s solid waste management, setting a template for other cities. In this interview with Question of Cities, Shekar says, “We need to invest in the informal sector and professionalise it so it co-exists with the formal sector.”
How did the Hasiru Dala model come about?
The need of the hour in 2010-13 was to include waste pickers in waste management. There were conversations on solid waste management in Bengaluru but nothing about waste pickers and the informal sector. A citizens group was pushing for decentralised waste management but did not know anything about waste pickers. I started working with the waste pickers and we went to Lok Adalat,[1] where we showed the importance of the informal sector and waste pickers. The local government agreed to give them occupational ID cards. That’s how our journey started. It has been organic because we hadn’t planned anything.
We worked on the ground to influence policy changes and we worked closely with citizen volunteers who made the changes happen. The middle class has a voice that can further our fight. With people who are concerned about the environment, we talk about waste pickers to make them our allies. Typically, workers’ organisations and environment organisations are at loggerheads. What is good for the environment may not be good for labour and vice versa. But we have shown that it is possible to work together. Citizens’ movements and waste picker movement together brought in changes in Bengaluru. We have also started helping people organise zero-waste events through our sister organisation Hasiru Dala Innovations.[2] It took a lot of trial and error but it’s making marathons and weddings with 15,000 people zero-waste events.
What are some of the institutional challenges you faced and how did you overcome them?
The first is the usual; we didn’t have money. My co-founder Anslem Rosario was among the first in India to talk about informal waste workers and their children in the late 1980s. We didn’t have an organisation so we asked other organisations to lend their staff. There were just seven of us but so many people to be organised. In the first year, we were able to identify and give ID cards to about 5,000 people. We built an agency of waste pickers. It was a part of our strategy since day one, not an afterthought.
Building trust was also a challenge, and not just here. I was one of the co-founders of Kagad Kach Patra Kashtakari Panchayat (KKPKP)[3] in Pune and faced the same challenge there too. I don’t look like them, dress like them, eat like them. I don’t do the work they do. Why should they trust me? Typically, the economically marginalised communities have been duped of their money with the promise of services like pensions and ration cards. Why would they believe us? Waste pickers would see us and hide under the rain water drain so they didn’t have to meet us. There was one woman who felt it was okay to try us out since we had been going to them everyday for three months.
There were cases of police harassment. The waste pickers wanted to test us and called us to the police station. We explained it to the police. After that the waste pickers became comfortable to talk to the police about the sexual harassment they faced, especially in the wee hours, and they began to trust us. The rest is history. We decided to work only in Karnataka. When we go to a new city and tell them that we are from Hasiru Dala, there is immediate trust because they have heard about us.
Photo: Mike Prince/ Flickr
What changes in waste management has the organisation been able to influence?
When we started working informally in 2010, there was no strong door-to-door collection system. Bengaluru’s waste was dumped in the surrounding villages. When the villages objected, there were heaps of waste accumulating all over. In one place, some 250 waste pickers and some of us pulled out around 10 tonnes of dry waste in three days.
This wouldn’t have happened with decentralised waste management and dry waste collection centres (DWCC) which we did. That’s what we call it in Bengaluru and Karnataka. Others call it the Materials Recovery Facility (MRF). The National Action for Mechanised Sanitation Ecosystem (NAMASTE) scheme, launched recently, also called it ‘dry waste collection centre’. When we started it, the government and the then commissioner were worried about the space it would take up but, today, there are 140 DWCCs. A PIL by a citizens’ group in Bengaluru and the Solid Waste Management Rules of 2016 helped to bring the ‘2Bin1Bag’ system of waste segregation, occupational ID cards, and decentralised waste management.
Hasiru Dala helped the government collect data on waste pickers so that they are officially recognised. We also asked the government to make a simple app which was not a big trend in 2011. My fear arises when they don’t seem open to giving ID cards to migrants. We are talking about 2010 which is pre-Aadhaar. At that time, most of our members were living on the pavement and many children didn’t go to school. We insisted that the government give them recognised ID cards with the signature of the commissioner which has since been implemented in over 18 cities and we continue to do it in others. It is a continuous process and we have a long way to go. In Karnataka, we have got only 25,000 ID cards and we think there are about 4,23,000 waste pickers. Karnataka is the first state where both rural and urban development departments have issued circulars that every local body should give ID cards to waste pickers. No other state has done it.
What is the ‘2Bin1Bag’?
In Bengaluru, Mandur and Mavallipura are two landfills close to villages. They had 2,500 to 3,500 tonnes of waste being dumped which we stopped. We started campaigning about segregation at source. Gradually, the government took it seriously. I had worked in Pune earlier where we had issues with sanitary waste, so we demanded a three-way segregation. Bengaluru implemented this in 2011. The segregation was green bin for organic waste, red bin for sanitary waste, and a bag for dry waste which would be collected only two times a week. So 2Bin1Bag.
Hasiru Dala put a lot of thought into this policy but now we don’t say so because citizens have taken over. We presented this to the court too and it has become the law. Besides Bengaluru, apartment complexes in Mumbai and Gurugram have implemented it. The Swachh Bharat Mission is still talking about two-way segregation. In gram panchayats in Karnataka too, we promote 2Bin1Bag and ask women to use cups or cloth-based sanitary napkins instead of single-use ones. It’s a replicable model with some tweaks as per the context of different places.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
When the unorganised sector is organised, what impact does it have on the way that a city functions?
Citizens get involved. They wanted DWCCs but when local leaders didn’t believe in the idea, they asked us to collect waste. So, waste pickers volunteered to collect waste from thousands of households for almost two years. Now, there are about 2,000 citizen volunteers. Back then, around 100 from each area met their MLAs, then the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) commissioner held a meeting in which we all demanded DWCCs. And the 2Bin1Bag model was adopted. Finally, the city government is responsible but to bring change in waste segregation, you need people to be aware and to participate. Then, you have the waste workers.
How does this work tie in with building climate resilience in our cities?
Climate resilience for vulnerable people is very different from their role as service providers. One of our studies showed that the slum houses of waste pickers are vulnerable to extreme heat and flooding. We are working with Biome Trust to mitigate these problems. We have asked the waste pickers to buy large plastic drums to store essential food, clothes, and also documents. We are also looking to build community centres on stilts. When they come to work, they help mitigate climate change for us but, paradoxically, have to battle climate events in their life. We have held training workshops, trained community leaders who have asked municipal commissioners about climate action plans. Bengaluru has one but most cities don’t.
How important is it to work with the government to bring about change?
You have to learn how to work with the government. The current chief secretary of Karnataka has seen our work for 10 years, so she is familiar with it. When authorities know and appreciate the work, it helps. In the first three years of Hasiru Dala, we did training sessions for officers because nobody knew what segregation was. Those officers have decision-making powers now. We would like to help other states too. Hasiru Dala doesn’t have to be a ‘unicorn’, the concept should be ‘unicorn’. So, it’s also about finding people within the system who understand your work.
Photo: Jashvitha Dhagey
What are some macro changes you would like to see in this sector? How can they be achieved?
Everybody talks about sanitation workers but pays lip service to them. I always say to commissioners and Swachh Bharat Mission representatives that waste pickers are treated like step-children but the formal sector doesn’t work without the informal sector. We saw it during COVID when we collected the waste but there was no market to send it to; it kept piling up in our collection centres because no recyclables moved out of Bengaluru. It was clear that the formal and informal sectors have to work together.
I would like this to be recognised. I would like investments to develop the informal sector too. But what does formalisation mean? Can you give jobs to 30,000 people with pension and PF benefits? In Indore, waste pickers used to make between Rs 12,000 and 30,000 a month. They were thrown out. When we raised our voices, they were appointed as gardeners or sweepers at Rs 6,500 because that’s the minimum wage. That’s not what we want. We are looking at ways to professionalise this service and consider it an important sector. We can look at this as an entrepreneurship model. In Bengaluru, the DWCC is a public-private partnership, the only city where an MoU has been signed with waste pickers. I don’t know how long it will be valid. We may have to fight again.
What can cities do to make waste management everybody’s responsibility?
I don’t think we need policy changes or legal changes. Let them implement what is there. The Solid Waste Management Rules of 2016 are good. They prescribe waste segregation at source in houses, housing societies, hotels, restaurants, at community gatherings, and by street vendors. Karnataka has a good policy. Many other states also have policies, maybe a little less robust but better than no policy. There are some challenges and gaps in the law but we must not get into changing the law; let’s implement it. I really hope that happens.
Jashvitha Dhagey is a multimedia journalist and researcher. A recipient of the Laadli Media Award consecutively in 2023 and 2024, she observes and chronicles the multiple interactions between people, between people and power, and society and media. She developed a deep interest in the way cities function, watching Mumbai at work. She holds a post-graduate diploma in Social Communications Media from Sophia Polytechnic.
Cover photo: Wikimedia Commons
