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.

I composted only fruit peels, greens and the flowers that I used for puja...Among veg. I added only green leaves. It took about 6 months to make 2 pots of compost. I mixed it with soil and used for the plants in our building. Our building watchman looked after the composting.

I used pots without ventilation with loose fitting earthen lids to keep the rats out and still let the air pass thro.

I am feeling happy for 2 reasons: I got sweet-smelling compost free of cost and my garbage output had reduced considerably. I also got into the habit of separating non bio-degradable and organic waste...

Attached is my labour of love.

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!

'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''.

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.

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 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.

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.

This very same team decided to also learn film making of a different kind. The "Quick Gun Murugan Way" - so we bought the cheapest camera and used imovie as our editor and had a very willing teacher in Helen Han (who was in India helping Daily Dump make a movie on waste) and hey presto - we became stars.

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 seive - 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