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Meet Babita Saxena, Anjana Ghosh and Radhica Kanniganti

of Ferns Paradise,
Near Bhagini Restaurant, Doddanakunthi,
Marathalli Outer Ring Road, Bangalore 560 037

This threesome have managed to launch a complete waste management programme for their 60 plot owners in their gated community.

The kick-off

Babita is the elected member of the Plot-owners association and heads the environment committee. Anjana and Radhica are core members of this committee. Together they set up a grand plan.

They categorized the waste into Kitchen Waste, Recyclables, Rejects, E-waste, Batteries, Yard Waste. They designed a neat information poster and clearly detailed what needed to be done with each category and how each category would be disposed. They then introduced this programme at the 26th January Republic day celebrations in their clubhouse. They got children to paint around the theme and had skits and talks to raise awareness. This ensured they got an enthusiastic buy-in.

The actual programme details

The kitchen waste is collected in a can or container (but not in a plastic bag). This is put into the Kambha. The fact that the trio were already composting using the Kambhas encouraged the 36 members of the community to each buy a Kambha. The Kambhas are serviced once a week by the existing housekeeping staff, who have been trained by Daily Dump.

 

 

The Recyclable waste was to be kept clean and dry and deposited in a bin for the waste collector to come and collect from outside each home.

The rejects were sealed in a plastic bag and also given to the waste collector.

The waste collector was chosen on the basis of the fact that she gave livelihood to the lower income community and also had a robust tie-up with the recyclers.

The E-waste was deposited in a collection point to be taken away by Saahas. Yard waste was suggested to leave in corner of plot or in empty land to naturally compost over time.

The team felt that the brochure design, and the fact that all three of them had working Kambhas to demonstrate composting helped convince the residents to buy the kambha.

The challenges

Anjana had a real grueling interaction with the Kambha. Her maggots got into her water tank and came in through the pipes. We asked why she still continued, and her reply was that she wanted to see how much it took to maintain this product. She continued because she was influenced by friends who had working composters. While she now successfully composts using the Kambha, she still feels that the product is heavy to handle and cumbersome in its shifting containers. We agree and have begun work on trying to change the way we use the Kambha.

All three of the team feel that providing service back up was critical to get a buy-in. People needed that reassurance that someone will come and look after the composter and attend to the issues of flies and smell and mixing.

The next move

They want the other 34 members to become part of this programme. They also are waiting for the first harvest of compost – so that members feel that the effort has been worth it.

Their aim is to aggressively promote the need to segregate and then convert all the residents to do it regularly.