At the corner of Jantar Mantar Marg, there is a mound of discarded cardboard containers, large garbage bags, plastic food containers, disposable cups, water bottles and packaging material. 20 metres away, a garbage bin is overflowing on Tolstoy Marg. Waste is piling up at the protest site and in its vicinity as thousands of protesters continue to pour in every day and extensive barricading on all approaching roads severely hamper New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) waste collection.
Event Context
Protesters themselves are also cleaning up after themselves and, on Thursday, HT saw dozens of volunteers wearing gloves and carrying garbage bags, collecting litter strewn along pavements and road dividers. There are dozens of videos online of people collecting garbage strewn on the streets.
Officials on the ground said much of the garbage consists of packaging material rather than household waste. “A significant portion is food delivery packaging, cardboard boxes, plastic wrappers and medicine packets. The volume is very high even though the weight isn’t,” said a second official, present at the site.
The second official quoted above said that staff had been diverted to deal with the massive influx. “The sanitation team has been working consistently in all 3 shifts. 12 safai karamchari in night; 50 safai karamcharis in morning and 20 in evening shift have been deployed at dharna site. Around 15 MT of garbage has been removed since midnight on July 22.”
The firstofficial added that smaller auto-tippers are currently being deployed, but they are not enough for the volume of waste. “Mechanised cleaning is being attempted through smaller gobbler machines,” the official added.
For many volunteers, cleaning the site has become an extension of the protest itself. They want the movement to leave behind a message, not a mountain of trash.
Player Focus
Picking up trash outside the NDMC HQ, volunteer Yash Tanwar said, “I have been here to two weeks. Sometimes my friends and I help collect garbage, at other times we distribute water or help in crowd management. It is all for the same goal.”
Support from Outside
The issue, however, has become the removal of all the waste that has accumulated. In the inner lanes leading to the protest site, heaps are visible at several corners. Even near the public convenience at the intersection outside the NDMC headquarters on Sansad Marg, a miniature landfill had come up by evening with overflowing bags spilling onto the roadside.
NDMC officials said clean-up operations are being carried out wherever access is possible, but the unprecedented scale of the protest and extensive police closures are presenting logistical constraints.
Resource Allocation for Waste Management
“The permanent barricades erected for security mean our large compactor trucks cannot enter the protest zone. We have asked our field staff to keep collecting waste into bags so that the lifting operation can be completed quickly whenever access is available,” said an official.
Volunteers are trying to do their bit.
Every day begins with protesters manually cleaning Jantar Mantar Road, picking up litter and putting it into garbage bags donated by Good Samaritans. Then they go on to sweep the roads.
As he speaks to HT, Siddhant Singh, a law student who hails from Banaras, has blue gloves in and is picking up litter from the intersection of Sansad Marg. “This is my way of contributing to keep the protest running. We have been doing this from last three days. I am not associated with Cockroach Janata Party (which is leading the protest) or any committee but the videos of students being beaten moved to come here and contribute.”
The waste accumulation cycle, however, repeats due to high footfall.
“We are making all efforts to remove the waste during the hours when the lanes are relatively free. However, the scale of garbage generation is unprecedented,” the official quoted above said.
According to civic officials, the surge is linked to an outpouring of support from people who are sending meals, groceries, and essential supplies to the site for demonstrators through food delivery and e-commerce platforms.
