Giving back to Nature, what Belongs to Nature

(तेरा तुझको अर्पण)

With the above vision & mission statement, i ventured to dirty my hands into waste, specially the biodegradables, that has been neglected for a long time. As the first Women Entrepreneur of Gujarat to have ventured into solid biodegradable waste management, when i look back at my journey so far, i feel i do not require to visit temples for earning Punya. The social message & this good deed of scientifically treating waste is enough to seek the Almighty’s blessings.

Preventing the cows from eating plastic bags because of the organic waste lying inside has been the major trigger point for this venture. Empathizing with the sad state of affairs of the Holy Cow or picking up a broom & sweeping the streets under swachhta abhiyan , doesn’t suffice. It is about providing an end-to-end solution to what must be done after waste reaches the dustbins. Segregation at source, awareness about what is recyclable & what is not, emphasis for zero waste campuses/areas can only make the swachhta abhiyaan, a success.

But unfortunately, Waste management is confined to collection & transportation in the country rather than treatment & safe disposal. The political climate has encouraged the transport contractors rather than the operators & manufacturers of equipment for scientific treatment of solid waste, in particular. Thus, one can infer that the political & economic climate hasn’t been conducive for start-ups, PPP mode set-ups & license operators in the context of solid waste management industry.

So my venture focus has been decentralization of biodegradable waste management. I set up projects in smaller & larger spaces like a factory, industrial unit, hotels, resorts, households where i utilize a small area to set up a greening zone, train their personnel & labour, thus, converting canteen food waste, garden waste & stationery paper waste into organic compost & vermicompost. This set up prevents garden waste from being burnt, zeroes down the costs on transportation of dumping waste in an unorganized open landfill, routinely generated biodegradables are prevented from reaching a dump site & makes the client self sufficient in the yearly requirement of fertilizers for their landscapes. The addition of organic compost replaces the use of artificial fertilizers which spoil the top soil & fertility in the long run. Using vermicompost for golf courses can save acres of land that may not respond to urea & other synthetic fertilizers after a span of 15 years. A household of average 4 members can easily generate 7-10 kgs compost from kitchen waste including food leftovers. It can also be sold for Rs. 10/kg to flatmates, gardens, nurseries etc. Like one sells newspaper, milk bags, oil tins & gets some money each month, one’s own organic waste can also fetch money or save you money for buying fertilizers from a nursery.

Such decentralized projects also reduce the carbon footprint of the company & helps them get better ratings from concerned state pollution control board for adopting best practices in waste management & in many cases, ISO standards to be met for waste reduction & reuse.

A major problem of manufacturing companies using wood as a fuel for boilers/ furnaces is also resolved by adopting composting of waste. Wood Ash which is the residue after wood is burnt, is used as an amendment to the composting process, thus giving a permanent solution to such forms of residual waste.

After the magnitude of the menace in urban outfits is worsening, it sometimes feels good that the old practices of giving away food leftovers to beggars & offering organics ie. fruit & vegetable waste to the cows/ animals who wander on our streets, is much more practical.

Ms. Phani Trivedi
Director, Wastengage Private Limited