Meet Trupti and Sarita

All the 12 flats segregate their waste at source into three categories namely; organic, recyclable and total refuse. The organic waste is stored in steel bins with lids and the other two categories are stored in two separate bins in each house. The residents themselves take out the bins and dispose off the organic waste into the composter. The common courtyard in the apartment has storage space for the recyclable waste like plastics, milk packets, metals, glass, and paper. The residents themselves segregate their recyclable waste and put it in the respective bins. The maids dispose off the total refuse garbage into a common bin stored outside the apartment premises, which is lifted by a private company.

Trupti and Sarita work together with the gardener to mix dry leaves, paper or sawdust in the compost bins and to stir the contents. The dry waste is sold off to a local kabadiwala every week and till now they have been able to generate rs 200 approx per month by selling the dry waste. The waste contractor now has reduced the amount he charges to cart the waste, as it has significantly come down.

The challenges faced by Trupti and Sarita were to convince the apartment folks about the cost involved in buying composters, tools, required powders, etc. What to compost and what not to compost was also another area which needed a lot of persistent efforts to get it right. A few other challenges they faced were regarding issues like where to store the dry waste as some residents were not happy with the sight of the collected waste in the common courtyard.

How we solved a problem:
Since our apartments seem to be generating more than 10 kgs of waste everyday we really needed to buy more pots. But buying more composters is not acceptable to the apartment people as it means increase in the cost. So, we have been using a huge cement bin, donated by Shri Venkatramanan, as a leave it pot for the semi composted matter. However, three weeks back we reached a stage when all our four composters and this bin was full and there was no space left for us to dump our organic waste in. We also did not want to stop the process as it would mean a change of habit once more and we would have to again ensure that everyone start composting once we had some space in the composters. After discussing the present situation with Poonam, it was decided that Poonam comes over to assess the situation and suggest some solution. Since buying any more composters was out of the question, the team from Daily Dump, Poonam, Delara, Sudheer, Kanchan and Trupti, emptied all the containers and made an open air pile at the dead end of the road which is an open space. The stuff in the four composters was smelling of anaerobic composting and was also full of maggots. The team very efficiently dumped the stuff in layers of wet and dry matter adding a lot of dry leaves which were raked from under the beautiful Gulmohor tree and also added some EM to it. Now that the four containers were empty again, Sarovar has again started putting their organic waste into them. This time, however, a lot of dry leaves or shredded newspaper is added to it everyday and the pots are also stirred everyday. Now there has been a significant reduction in the contents of the composters and the smell has also not reappeared.