For four hours on a September morning, volunteers clearing the edge of Bengaluru’s Turahalli Forest kept finding more than plastic.

Under heaps of discarded packaging and household waste were dog carcasses stuffed into bags, poultry refuse, sanitary waste and medical waste. By the time the cleanup ended, more than two tonnes of legacy waste had been removed from the forest boundary.

The discovery came during a ‘Clean Up Turahalli’ drive on 12 September, led by Madhya Pradesh-based environmental activist Surendra Singh Choudhary, popularly known as Bittu Tabahi, along with local volunteers, environmentalist A N Yellappa Reddy and members of India Plog Run.

For Bittu, this was his first major cleanup outside Madhya Pradesh. He had recently gained attention for documenting his efforts to clean the heavily polluted Ajnar River in Rajgarh district, where he spent money from his own pocket on tools and repeatedly returned to remove accumulated waste.

At Turahalli, he expected plastic.

“Initially, I thought it would be only plastic waste, but as I started clearing it, I was stunned to find dog carcasses and medical waste underneath the plastic heaps,” he told The Times of India.

The discovery points to a larger problem: when an urban forest becomes an unofficial dumping ground, waste does not remain confined to a pile.

A forest with more life than the city sees

Turahalli may sit within Bengaluru’s expanding urban landscape, but........

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