We launched the Daily Dump on 14th April 2006. I had done 2 years of intermittent research before that on the products and process.

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Two of my ex-students, Kanikya Kini, Shashwati Balasubramniam and I were the core team who created the first lot of communication material and implemented the launch.

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I graduated in Product Design in 1985 from the National Institute of Design. I worked in small scale manufacturing after college and then set up a craft based design company called Industree with two other partners. I quit after 5 years and set up Playnspeak a proprietorship concern to make products for the home and meanwhile I also was the founding faculty of Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology in Bangalore. It was on my red carpet at home that we evolved the first blueprint for the design school. I quit the school in May 2008.

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Every interview I am asked this question. The short answer is I did not find it, it found me. Really. Yes, I was on the road asking various questions, like most people, questions about how best to occupy one’s time, what is real quality, should one make an impact, the difference between impact and transformation, …well ….and then I guess you get started by a project. So Daily Dump happened.

And why do I think its special .......

You are a ordinary Indian. You are tired of words, you want to contribute in a tangible, direct manner to the mess you see around you. You hear about Daily Dump. Hmmmm, you say, it seems so simple, what took it so long to arrive? That's what is hot about Daily Dump. Its a simple but immediate first step for every Indian who wants to make a difference to the waste issue in our cities. Its so simple that anyone can do it!

From a larger perspective, the open-source platform emphasises that waste (like water, education, equity and dignity) belongs to "all of us" - we cannot abdicate responsibility only to the politicians, lobbyists, or big corporations. Our vision is to make a large impact through a large number of people in a way that is sustainable, dignified and is fun!

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I wanted ordinary Indians to feel empowered to make a difference to the waste surrounding them. Your home waste is 50 - 70 % organic, so keeping this off the streets can reduce the mess on the streets by 60%, that's a big impact!

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Our research revealed a lot about people’s perceptions on waste and their willingness to do something about it. We created our challenges from these findings and they are available here………

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I (Poonam Bir Kasturi) am the proprietor of Playnspeak (a proprietorship concern) which owns the flagship brand of Daily Dump.

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From my personal savings.

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The franchisee model works well in some cases, in composting, I am not so sure, so I am experimenting. I believe that distributed ownership without any legal payback obligations may spawn a richer way of looking at work, and of knowledge dissemination. My interest is to try and change behaviour and creating a large centralized business is not the priority. So when you set such a goal, then you view traditional ideas of competition, market share, wealth etc through new lenses. What do I have to loose? If I fail, they will all say, ha, these non-management types don’t know how to read a balance sheet. But if composting becomes a national habit, without one large business house but lots of micro-enterprise’s, then the purpose of Daily Dump is well served.

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The more the merrier! One person can eat only so much ice cream! Also the rate we are messing up our cities, there are not enough of us to clean up!

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The Daily Dump design is available to anyone who is interested – our designs are protected by a creative commons license and our cloning approach allows for a terms of use agreement to use the designs. I plan to support every person who is brave enough to clone this in every possible manner. They will then be the front riders for dissemination.

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I guess a large business house would take that route, I am so small that I prefer the subversive, slow and bottom up strategy. I like to think, this way is more fun for all of us who are involved in it and fun for all the clones on the way and in the long run more sustainable and robust.

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People like my late father, (one of India’s first designers), my family (their work ethic), Kiran Bedi, Ela Bhatt, Mother Teresa, Anil Agarwal of CSE, and Ricardo Semler.

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