bengaluru residents of vinayak nagar and kr garden in murugeshpalya ignored the garbage rotting in the neighbourhood until it landed them into a bigger mess rodents thriving on the waste mounds started entering their cars and gnawing at the wires people would get their vehicles fixed and a few days later the situation would be back to square one said shivakumar a resident it didnt take them long to realize that garbage dumped at vacant sites was at the root of the rodent menace when everyone from bbmp officials to corporators failed to address the problem residents decided to take matters into their own hands this was the beginning of the waste management task force in murugeshpalya it started 10 months ago with 12 members who took on the problem one street corner at a time today about 100 residents are part of it from monitoring dumpyards to spreading awareness on segregation they have changed the face of the neighbourhood today more than 800 houses in murugeshpalya are segregating waste at source a site which was earlier used to dump trash is now a community garden with flowering plants bananas aloe vera and tomatoes the proceeds go to the neighbourhood the dead soil is nourished back to life using compost from homes two sites have been converted into parking lots the journey aravind an architect and resident said it was far from easy we knocked on many doors from municipal authorities to elected representatives we approached everyone they knew about the problem but with the mandur landfill and terra firma unit being closed they couldnt do much he said as the word spread residents of murugeshpalya realized their counterparts in mandur and mavallipura were also in the same boat at first we wanted strangers to stop dumping waste near our homes but we realized if not murugeshpalya people would find other places segregation at source seemed the only solution he said only a handful of the residents were segregating waste we couldnt wait for the government to act said prashanth a craftsman and one of the founders of the task force garbage was coming from two sources houses which were not segregating it and residents of areas like marathahalli who disposed it off near our homes he said we took on the role of watchdogs we stopped vehicles and confronted people who were littering the locality prashanth said members witnessed both apathy and lack of awareness among the litterbugs both were tackled we wanted people to take ownership of their garbage as long as the waste was inside their house it was theirs the minute it was brought outside it became a community issue when caught dumping waste sometime people snapped and asked me if it was my site i said yes they were at a loss for words he added