Page 13 - CIJ Sept 2025- Digital Edition

WASTE BITES

Bengaluru Drowning in Hyderabad Robots to

5,000T of Textile Waste Clear Waterlogging

India’s garment capital is drowning in Year after year, Hyderabad
textile waste, with Bengaluru producing struggles with waterlogging,
nearly 5,000 tonnes annually, much of it traffic snarls and overflowing
unmanaged and unsafe. drains every monsoon, largely
due to silt-choked stormwater
study by the Institute for Social & Economic lines.
Change revealed that while export unit waste is
systematically recycled, cloth scraps from tailoring o break the cycle, the Greater Hyderabad
A shops and local units are casually dumped into Municipal Corporation (GHMC) has
bins or burned. Nearly 40% of Bengaluru’s textile waste launched a robotic pilot project in
is shipped to Tirupur and Panipat for recycling, but a TMehdipatnam (Circle-12). Equipped with
large chunk ends up in landfills or fuels unsafe informal high-resolution CCTV cameras, the robotic
recycling. machines can detect and clear blockages with
Researchers highlighted the lack of a centralised waste precision, targeting the silt and debris that
database, fragmented collection and unsafe working cripple the city’s drainage network.
conditions for women sorters in the informal sector. They The move is not just about efficiency — it
recommended integrating textile waste into the municipal also protects sanitation workers from unsafe
collection system, investing in recycling facilities and manual drain cleaning. If successful, GHMC
regulating the sector to handle the mounting load. Without plans to expand the use of robotic cleaning
intervention, Bengaluru’s textile boom risks turning into an across the city, making technology a frontline
environmental bust. defence against Hyderabad’s seasonal flooding.

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