Wednesday, February 03, 2010

Magical Pots!


In a world of confusing messages, where environmental problems seem so huge that each of us feel that we cannot affect them, one of the easiest ways to have a positive impact on the world is to reduce and manage our individual wastage.

Wondering what I am talking about ? I am talking about composting.
70% of the waste from each household is organic waste. The vegetable peels, the left overs, paper waste, dry leaves all this is organic waste. Typical story of this waste is that it goes into a
dustbin along with their other friends like plastic waste and polythene waste. From the dustbin it goes to the waste collecting guy (sometimes it ends up in open areas beside houses). The guy transfers it to a bigger dustbin. The municipality van collects all these bigger bins and take the waste to a dumping yard away from the city (but closer to some village). The director of ASCI was one telling me that around 2000 garbage collecting vans operate daily to collect the waste from various parts of city. Since there are huge amounts of waste collecting in dump yards and there are no organised mechanisms to handle such huge quantities of waste, the waste creates lots of issues. The soil, water, air and health of surrounding villages is spoiled. Lots of effort, lot of fuel, lots of issues! At the rate our cities are growing, municipalities are not able to cope up with such huge wastes.

Composting helps solve lots of these issues. I came across this beautiful compost design at Daily Dump and I kept reading about it. I have seen it in operation at my friend's place. He has used it in his house and all the waste from his house of 6 people for 3 months has got converted into just a small flower pot of rich compost. Otherwise that waste of 3 months would have travelled some hundreds of kilometers and still create problems. Here it has turned into a bag of compost and is enriching the soil.




Composting is a natural process of decomposition of plant remains and "once-living" natural waste into dark soil like material which enriches soil. It has been happening for ages now, especially in rural areas for enriching the soil in the fields. Now, with invention of such beautiful, easy to use composters, it can be done at every house.

Why should one think of composting?
1) This is one aspect and possibility of living an eco-friendly life
2) My waste, so I will mange it.
3) It reduces the load on public waste management system
4) Why spend so much effort and fuel on transporting waste!
5) It is simple, everyone can do it and takes 10 mins per day.
6) Results in compost which can enrich some flower pots or garden.
7) We get connected to nature, its an opportunity to understand many things about nature.
8) All raw materials are available! (currently lying in dustbins!)


When we read this, the immediate apprehensions are like Not my job, I pay taxes ... might look like just a expensive dustbins ... it might smell ... will I have time .. will I be able to do it .. I do not have all that knowledge etc. About issue like smell, they are all addressed. Meticulously designed Dailydump website has all info. There are simple solutions for it. About time, convenience, I think its just a matter of confidence, motivation and awareness. Reading more about it would help.

I plan to try this out very soon ... will update you what my learnings are :-) ...

7 comments:

Unknown said...

Thanks for the info suman. Will definitely go through dailydump for more details.

Sriharsha said...

Suman, I am checking your blog for quite some time and now ur MBA I know where you are going :) I wish best of luck... BTW this daily dump is walkable distance from where I stay. I will check this out, I never knew about this before.

Prashant said...

Check this:

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Zero-waste-policy-Green-heros-home-now-a-must-visit/articleshow/5238001.cms


This person actually 'consumes' his waste!

Suman Y said...

@Anitha: Yup. Check it out the website is very well done. Especially see the "Do you still need to be convinced" section on bottom right in home page :) .. and see what do I do with the compost .. its funny :D

@Harsh: Thanks buddy. I am actually into MS .. not MBA :P .. ya do check out .. I think the people are very nice in that organisation ..

@Prashant: Thanks a lot for sharing this link ..
I heard about ExNoRa (http://exnorainternational.org/sowam.shtml) from Padma in Motorola but never found out the details. Padma was keen on doing something about waste management at Motorola also. ExNoRa seem to be doing a lot of work on waste management. And ya :-) this particular home that you have given link to is a perfect example of what can be done at each house ... :-)

Surya said...

A very nice article. Please let me know what you are up to??

- Surya
~ IIIT-Hyd, your previous batch - 2k

Suman Y said...

Surya .. nuvvu mari antha introduction ivvadam avasaram aa :) ... previous batch anukuntu :)) .. hehe ... ela marchipotam ninnu ..

prastutam nenu IIIT lone unna surya .. MS chestunna ... 2008 august lo Moto quit chesi ikkada join ayya .. ippudu 2nd year MS ..

Deepthi Pola said...

good one suman!!! will see the daily dump one further details.