Pratima Rao - a friend, well wisher and customer - wrote to say, Dear Poonam and team, A big thank you to all of you. I had made this year an eco/green year and Daily Dump made it possible for me. I harvested the 2nd batch of Black Gold and this time got it right, dried and seived it and was a WOW feeling.

We are happy and glad Pratima. Every person who enjoys home composting helps strengthen our resolve that we are on the right path.

Poonam was invited to facilitate a day-long workshop with members from Saahas, CSA and CHFInternational at the Waste Sorting Center (Koramangala) for the new Sorting Centre at Ejipura near the National Games Village.

While a place like this has some broad areas demarcated, some decisions require clarification and discussion ; such as where exactly segregation needs to happen, does sieving the done compost need to happen, if yes, then where? Does there need to be an area to store the shredded leaves to feed the OWC? How far does one material have to travel or be handled? How can area allocation reduce the time it takes to move material around?

These issues were examined and suggestions listed out during the workshop.

The group also discussed details of how to make this space look more organized, and more inviting.

This is at Brigade School (JP Nagar Bangalore) where they had Mind Space Day on ...22 Dec 2010. Some of the senior kids had one room for explaining about waste management. And what they showcased included the Daily Dump kambha prototype.

Thanks Arathi for sharing this.

Preethi Prabhu wrote to us I bought a Khamba from your main outlet in Indiranagar last Saturday. Been using it for a week now and I am glad to see how much difference it makes to my waste management, I hardly have any trash for the BBMP guys to pick. Thank you again for the wonderful product.

I made a mention of it on my blog, do take a look

Thank you Preethi and we hope you are able to inspire more people with your energy.

Rama Raghavan - a happy customer from Chennai wrote to us, sharing her experience of using the Daily Dump Manthan at her housing complex.

Dear Navneeth, dear Poonam, I am happy to share the sucess of the last month in our colony. Its been an uphill struggle but am proud to state that we have been able to collect 100% segregated organic waste by implementing collection at doorstep! We collected around 600-700 Kilos of waste and the same has already shrunk to around 250 kilos and will reduce further. As we had a couple of cyclone threats and a lot of rain, the dry manure is taking a while , otherwise, we would have had a product by now.

This is wonderful news and we think it requires more and more such committed people like Rama and Navneeth to make it happen.

Earlier this year Helen Han had spent 8 weeks with us courtesy the SITRA Lab in Helsinki to document the waste story and our design process.

In September at the Helsinki Design Lab - that saw a meeting of the minds from design and government - a group of about 120 people from 20 countries - Helen had the first preview of her film. The feedback was that there were many who were very excited to see design applied to larger scale social issues. Bryan Boyer from SITRA tells us that people seemed to have really enjoyed the film as a way of learning about our work, and about the context of the challenges that working with waste is mired in here.

The movie can be viewed online

In the October issue of Recycle Now, Daily Dump contributed an article about one of the pivotal players of the informal recycling sector - the kabbadiwalas. We hope to work more in this area in the coming year.

We recently conducted our first In-house test of compost, using an imported test kit. The test results gave us a pat on the back by indicating that the Compost sample was stable and suitably mature for official use.

How we wish technology in India is soon applied to develop similar simple and low-cost procedures for vital areas such as checking air, water and soil health.

We selected the compost from the Manthan 300litre composter, installed at our office. The test was aimed at 2 aspects:

1. Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emission - Ratio of CO2 produced to O2 (Oxygen) consumed was 1.2%, indicating that the compost is in a category that "is essentially self aerating" and supports biodegradation. A compost with high emissions of CO2 is not stable, and will deplete oxygen fairly rapidly.

2. Ammmonia (NH3) emission - The test indicated that compost is not high in Nitrogen, is not low in Carbon:Nitrogen ratio and therefore not phytotoxic (will not cause any plant damage).

Plants tolerate and utilize compost better the more mature it is. Compost is also Less likely to support pathogen growth and is therefore safer for food crops. Our compost is similar to "Stable compost-soil blends" and may be used in: Hothouse Beds, Greenhouses, Orchards, Pastures, Hay Crops, Turf, Topsoil Substitutes and General Gardening.

More than 300 persons, including children celebrated Gandhi Jayanti with us at our Open House on Oct 2nd. Talks for adults, film screenings and activities for children made it lots of fun and a good learning for all of us! here are some images. For more, do see this link (click)

Eternal Bhoomi initiated by the Bhoomi Network as a quarterly is another magazine we were happy to contribute to. This time's issue carried an article on 'Islands of Green'.

To know more about the magazine, visit their site

Paola has been busy at work promoting home composting. In her recent mail she shares, Starting spring here, and everything seems to be sparkling. Our Kamba has been selected to participate in the professional exhibition in the Design Bi Annual exhibition, here, in Santiago. I'm very happy about this, I feel it as a reward for our (and your) work. Also, during october and november we will be participating in 4 different exhibitions, 3 of them related to plants and garden, and the 4th is the Expo Rural, which last year received about 100,000 visits. That's a lot for us, remember we are a small country... ; )

We are so happy Paola and wish you the very best

Daily Dump celebrates Gandhiji with an Open House.

We look forward to meeting all our old friends and making new ones too!

Timberland, a large brand that is eco-sensitive has an eco-warrior initiative. So they felicitate people who work for the environment. Poonam was invited for such a function alongwith 4 other eco-warriors who have been contributing in ways that are autonomous and significant.

John Abraham gave away trophies as well as shoed each eco-warrior with a Timberland product. Timberland had collaborated with famous wild life film maker Mike Pandey to organise this event and both John Abraham and Mike Pandey enthused the crowd to read out a eco-pledge. John Abraham even promised to begin segregation at his own home!

Hope his fans follow too!

Anil Ranglani made sure participants at this function hosted by the H-West ward Citizens Trust were taken through the functioning of the Daily Dump composter .

75 yr old Mrs Sudha Pai of Pune has been diligently writing and sharing her experience of dealing with household waste using different methods. In this article in the Indian Express she shares her experience with the Kambha and says it is very useful for flat owners. For more inspiration from Mrs Pai's work, see her blog

Thank you Mrs Pai.

It is so exciting to see the kambha take on its various region specific avatars. This one from our new clone in Nagpur Shirish & Suchitra Godbole. They write, Dear Poonam, We are pleased to let you know that we have made our first prototype of kambha. It looks little different and needs some finishing. We have already worked on that and the regular kambhas will be more perfect. We are sending you the photographs of it and a small write-up for customers. We are also preparing hand-outs and shortly we will launch our product here.

Congratulations Shirish & Suchitra!

The Foreign Policy Digest features an interview with Poonam. Read it online here

Paola from Chile recently shared some images of their new products. They have made a tiny 2 tiered composter - Nini,which they sell with a small amount of earthworms. It is mainly bought for children as many kids feel attracted to earthworms and like to treat them as pets!

The Tita is a slightly smaller version of the Kambha for people who live alone or those who find the Kambha too big.

Of the recently produced apron, she says, It's made with cotton, and of course hand made. The texts reads something like "recycling is good", which is our slogan.

Very nice Paola !

Abhinav Gangumalla from Hyderabad had come to meet us a couple of weeks ago. He and his father Mr G Sreeramulu (seen in the picture) have since identified local potters and got these lovely prototypes made. They are now the latest entrants to our clone family. Welcome!

We certainly think Hyderabad will soon Go Green with all this work!

This project was launched at the Government Kannada Higher Primary School, Channenahalli, Magadi Road Bangalore, on 10th August, 2010

We partnered with Akshara (an NGO which works with Government Schools) to install three composters in this school. The head mistress and teachers were very helpful and excited with the potential educational value of this project. Daily Dump will with the help of Akshara monitor and reward the outcomes. Like Arvind Venkatadri of Akshara says, we must ideally scale up to at least 400 schools to understand the impact of this kind of intervention.

Thanks to the great marketing efforts of Firdosh Roowala - a Daily Dump clone in Pune and his wife Delnaz - 100 kambhas were bought by the Bank of Maharashtra in Pune, as part of their Ganpati celebrations this year.

Superb ...Keep up the great work Firdosh

Hema visited 'Kozhiyanursalai village with Raghu and Ramesh of the ondicherry Science Forum (PSF) who had visited us at Bangalore in June this year. The village has several traditional potter families who make cooking & water pots for the local markets and in addition some nice terracotta horses/idols for the village temples too. Potter Thandabani replicated the 3 piece khamba proto on a trial basis & fired them. As Hema says, "they are not bad at all, the firing is good".

Lets hope this leads to another clone and livelihood opportunities for the potter families there. Thank you Hema for all the effort.

This month for Recycle Now we wrote about Bio Plastic. Read this and tell us what you think about this plastic

Two young college students - Prasanthi and her friend - from Thanjavur had visited us in June 2010 saying they were keen to promote the practice of composting in their township. Since then they've been busy doing just that. They've managed to get 19 houses in Coir Board to start composting by digging pits for them! Their aim is to get atleast 100 houses to do this by 2011.

Now aren't they truly composting champions!

Way to go Prasanthi and friends!

Read Prasanthi's blog to stay updated on their efforts in Thanjavur

Bhavani Prakash, founder of Eco Walk the Talk already composts at home (Singapore) using flower pots. So when she read about the kambhas she was keen to see how it works. On her blog that promotes green living, she has carried a detailed 2-part article on the Daily Dump composter as well as an interview.

She also shared with us the feedback she received on Facebook

Thank you Bhavani!

Read the first part and second part of the article as well as the interview online.

We received this mail today.

I had visited daily dump during my visit to Bangalore and bought the accelerator and neem mix. I started composting in 2 terracota pots bought from a nursery in Mumbai around Jan 2010.

usha Sampathkumar

Thank you and congratulations Ms Usha for persevering and getting your first harvest of compost! We hope more individuals follow your example.

Geetanjali Sridharan in Bangalore East has been working hard to convert as many people as possible to the practice of managing waste at source. She has now initiated a monthly newsletter for her neighbourhood. Read the newsletter and know more about Geetanjali and her work here .

May your tribe increase Geetanjali - our city certainly needs more people like you!

This year, we also decided to start sharing our experiences and views to a wider audience through articles in select journals/magazines. Recycle Now is one such monthly magazine that we believe is serving a growing need in today's society. For this issue, we wrote an article on Metallised Plastic.

We plan to write an article every month, so stay updated!

Karan and Yogita of Green Essentials Goa and Clinton Vaz have been working hard to ensure that not only urban residents but Panchayats too continue the practice of composting. This article in the Navhind Times hopefully ensures that they get a lot more enquiries.

" Hi Poonam. I've being working very hard to set up our web page , and at last it is ready! Today I received a quotation requirement, for 200 composters, for a municipality. I've been working all afternoon in this, it would be a great jump for us. I think that the great difference between our composters and others is essentially the material: terracota v/s plastic.

And, one more, our big composter, called Mamma, is ready to be sold.

Lovely to hear all the news Paola and we certainly hope you get the order for 200 composters.

'Humane solutions for a Resilient World' was the theme of the World Industrial Design Day Celebrations at the NID R & D Campus, Bangalore. Poonam's talk at the occasion was entitled "Don't Throw Anything Away. There is NO 'AWAY''. Read more here

We were happy to receive this message from Shalini - who has initiated the Green Diamond project at Diamond District, Bangalore.

Dear Poonam, My aunt in Meerut liked the use of the khamba at my home and once I connected her to the supplier at Delhi, she has been enjoying this. she has been covered by the local papers there. The article is in Hindi, but wanted to share this with you.

Thanks for sharing Shalini and nice to hear you love making compost Ms Somi.

Daily Dump was invited to present at the Rework the World Conference in Leksand, Sweden.

This was a great opportunity to meet like minded professionals working in different spheres and learning from their experiences. Poonam made a presentation at one session and also shared Daily Dump material on their website.

On 5th June, ITC Mughal, Agra invited Daily Dump for providing awareness on waste management to its employees. Dr Jaya Deshpande represented Daily Dump.Team ITC appreciated the Daily Dump solutions for home composting.

The Daily Dump composter is so simple that we want people to copy, adapt and grow it.

We truly believe that changing people’s behaviour is best possible by keeping knowledge open.

Someone sent us this link from a DIY site with step by step instructions on how to make Daily Dump terracotta composters…It even acknowledges us.

It is moments like this that make our work such fun.

DIY!

A special preview of films produced under the UK Environment Film Fellowship awards is being screened on Saturday 5th June at 5:30 PM. The venue is National Gallery of Modern Art, Palace Road, Bangalore.

One of the films features Daily Dump.

We received this message from our well-wisher Jesper Pagh.

Right now Worldchanging is running a campaign of 'Attention Philanthropy' giving an invited crowd of people the opportunity to nominate a project. I just wanted to let you know that I gave my grant to Daily Dump and that you can read it here

Worldchanging.com is a nonprofit media organization that comprises a global network of independent journalists, designers and thinkers.

In their own words, Attention philanthropy, is a gift of notice. In a noisy world, deluged in advertising, overrun with PR flacks and crowded with the superficial, one of the biggest barriers to success for a small, good idea or noble enterprise can simply be getting noticed in the first place...it is grant-making that deals in praise, rather than money.

So thank you for this Jesper!

On the basis of the jury rating and decision, Daily Dump was declared the Winner under the Green Change Leadership category for the LeapVault Change Leadership Awards 2010.

The LeapVault Change Leadership Awards, is said to be the world’s 1st ever change leadership award, instituted in exclusive association with Who Moved My Cheese?

We sincerely hope this gets more people to take notice and to start composting!

Deepa Kudva Kamath kindly agreed to receive the award on our behalf. Thank you Deepa!

Details in this article on rediff.com:

The Kambha is the star at the Launch of National SCHOOL SANITATION INITIATIVE at Vigyan Bhawan

Organized by :Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India,

Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India,

Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE)

GTZ (German Technical Cooperation)

At this event where the Hon Minister Kapil Sibal and Hon Minister S Jaipal Reddy Announced the name of Mr. Aamir Khan as the Brand Ambassador for National School Sanitation Initiative - they also unveiled the Kambha on the main stage to mark the launch of the biodynamic waste segregation program.

Dr Jaya Deshpande has made this connection happen - through her patient and determined interaction with the agencies involved. Here she is at the Daily Dump stall which was visited by many school children and teachers during that event.

Hopefully schools will understand how composting works.

Dear Friend of Composting,

Daily dump just turned 4 this year. Yes, its been a challenging and wonderful ride so far. Do visit our website to see the changes that have happened - www.dailydump.org. (our products section is still being constructed)

We would like to thank you for your support and encouragement so far. We have installed our first community composting solution last financial year and the team has grown to a size of 6 very eccentric but passionate women.

It is our pleasure to share our very first movie that we learnt to make - hope you enjoy it.

It is about saving dried leaves - a resource that everyone gets fed up with.

Everybody who is composting knows how precious dry leaves are. But we still see mounds of dry leaves being burned every year. Come, let's save our leaves. Watch

Please share this method of leaf composting with as many people as you can.

When you want a list of biryani places in your locality, you can call Just Dial or Ask Laila and they will give you the information. Try asking for the numbers and addresses of your local Kabbadiwalla.

This may seem a small detail but there are many others, like no one trusts the Kabbadiwalla and the government has no incentives for these amazing recyclers. This is a group of hardworking, autonomous and very resourceful people. To get to know them more and try and understand how Daily Dump can understand waste in the city better, we conducted a half day workshop for the kabbadiwallas in our area. This was attended by 10 out of the 30 we had called. It was a first step and we hope this will enable us to work with them to reduce waste in our cities. After the workshop we realized we have a lot to learn from them.

To get the Manthan off the ground - we have run into such a problem. And while we are still trying to sort out the glitches on production, our Chilean clone has created this wonderful, recycled tumbler out of old wine casks. Way to go Paola! I wish we could make these here.

The Sitra Lab in Helsinki has written a case study on Daily Dump.

This is the first time someone has written a case around the project. It feels a little strange reading about it - a most onlooker kind of feeling. Do read it and send us your comments. Better still send it to the authors Bryan Boyer & Justin W. Cook

For more details see:

We decided that our books were getting such attention, that it was time to have a bit of fun. So on a sunday the team at Daily Dump stood at 2 big traffic signals selling books to people in their vehicles. Of course we had the best time in our lives and made friends with all the other sellers and beggars. They took us happily into their fold - after checking we were not going to be here everyday. And we had a long conversation with a old Traffic policeman who clearly debunked our efforts. He said "What you are doing will appeal to only 1% of our population. It will make no difference to anything!" And then he asked for a copy - we hope his grand childen enjoy the books!

We sold enough books to pay for a good lunch. We plan to do this more often. If anyone wants to join in - let us know.

Paola from Chile sent us pictures on how the clone is progressing. She was not affected directly by the earthquake, but she does know of people who were. And she is also working on a rotating composter with wood since she believes that she wants to keep the material eco-friendly.

Look at her sieve - isn't it wonderful?

Great going Paola

Over the last 8 weeks, the team here in Bangalore has been very busy. Learning film-making and enhancing our understanding of the entire architecture and system of dry waste recycling in the city. And we were able to do this at an accelerated pace, with the appropriate skills and necessary momentum, only thanks to Helen Han -an architect and film maker based in Boston.

Helen came to Daily Dump courtesy SITRA – The Finnish Innovation Fund. This is an independent government endowment that reports to the Finnish Parliament and focuses on looking at far-reaching change that simultaneously affects the structures and practices of society and the everyday life of its citizens.

She came to help Daily Dump to document the story of waste and our design approach.

Bryan Boyer, Design Lead in the Strategic Design Unit primarily responsible for Helsinki Design Lab 2010, accompanied Helen in the first few days of her visit.

In the course of her two months here, Helen blended in effortlessly with the rest of the team and helped us understand the technical and finer aspects of film-making. Something that we are most excited about and keen to work with in the coming weeks.

She also trekked along happily to Jollypet, Nayandahalli, all the different kabadiwallas and even to a landfill – to truly understand the way things function. At the end of her stay, she felt there was still so much to understand and wanted to stay on! She also shared with us some of the most ridiculous fears and impressions people had given her of India!

Helen’s film will debut at the Helsinki Design Lab 2010 so keep a lookout for that!

Thank you Helen and SITRA.

We now look forward to Helen's next trip with her sister who she says is an Indophile!

As part of the National School Sanitation Initiative, Dr Jaya Deshpande went to present the Daily Dump idea to the Honorable Minister of Education Kapil Sibal.

This meeting took place in New Delhi where Mr Sibal appreciated the Kambha as being a good way to get young people to do hands own waste management.

We are hopeful that schools grow into the practice of teaching kids basic principles of segregation, consumption and cradle to cradle ideas. What fun - the Kambha will truly then become an Indian Idol!!!

Hey Poonam,

My khambha is creating excellent compost and i am so proud to have shared this at Jain college yesterday.I took my compost which was moist and so sweet smelling.Everybody was enthused by it.

This time i have been giving the Khambha a lot of attention and the moisture balance is so perfect ,not a single Maggot this time.My first crop of Methi grown with my first lot of compost is almost ready.

Thanks for giving this to me! I am an organic farmer now !! ha! ha !

We are going to have a 'methi paratha' party with the Organic methi grown with my compost soon.

Vani

A Customer of Daily Dump Hyderabad wrote in to share his success with composting - and his pride that his child is learning a great attitude.

Hi,
This is the first batch from our Daily Dump Khamba ( though technically it's not from Daily Dump or your clone, since the idea and technical inputs are from your site, the credit goes to you!!). We were generally very excited about it and were sharing the mail below with all our friends, so just thought we'd share with the people who drove us there too!!

But one thing that I see as a potential is whether this can be driven as a mass program ( along the lines of the rain water harvesting). Any ideas that you'll have on that? And any way we can help spread the concept? Do please let us know.

Regards
Vivek Anand
General Manager
Deccan Engineering Enterprises