The grand swearing-in ceremony of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar on Saturday was attended by over a lakh people. Soon after the ceremony was over, pictures surfaced on social media of the streets around the stadium being littered with plastic packets, bottles and more.
According to the officials of the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), 15 tonnes of waste were collected near the stadium.
“Around 1.2 lakh people attended the event. We had kept 50 dustbins, but there was a lot of litter. There were buttermilk packets, plastic water and juice bottles, tetra packs and much more collected,” said an official in the Solid Waste Management department of BBMP.
They further said that the heavy rain which followed the swearing-in ceremony also added to accumulation of more waste. “As it rained heavily with strong winds, there were several fallen tree branches and leaves which also contributed to the large amount of garbage collected in the area,” the official said.
Apart from this, around three tonnes of garbage were collected from near the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) office on Queens Road. While the regular waste collection from the office is carried out in the bulk waste generators category, on Saturday, there was quite some littering near the office too.
With more waste expected to be generated on the day, the zonal BBMP officials had an extra compactor ready. “There was a wet compactor which we used as a mixed (dry and wet waste) compactor on Saturday,” the official said.
The company, which had procured the tender for erecting banners and cutouts, had taken the responsibility of even discarding them which saved some work for the BBMP. With huge amounts of flowers also used during the function, a proactive woman volunteered to collect them and recycle them to provide fragrance for incense sticks, officials reported.
