I Own My Garbage

In the last decade, we were learning not to throw garbage and damage the surroundings. But I was not aware that in the near future, paradigms would change a lot. The new paradigm is “I own my garbage”. It was interesting to know that 6 tonnes of solid waste can produce up to 0.25 tones of methane, and horrifying to know that just 2 cities Kalyan and Dombivli dump more than 700 tonnes of garbage daily. Methane traps 64 times the heat that can be trapped by equivalent amount of carbon dioxide. Contribution of garbage to global warming and hygienic life is much beyond our imagination. So, we need to contribute on individual basis, which can make a big difference. Lets see how it can.

Nowadays, the awareness on reducing garbage is slowly gaining ground. As far as my town is considered, the municipal corporation is really trying hard to manage garbage effectively. But garbage increases exponentially. And residential areas contribute a lot. We really cant spend much of our time on that. More importantly, we also need to know the options as what to do. If we think different, we can practically do some small but positive things. I realized it when I started doing “Garbage to Fertilizer” project in a basket in my apartment. It takes very less space in my home and takes almost 15-20 min a day to put my kitchen waste and mix with bio-culture. It worked successfully, and in last 10 months I converted more than 300 kg of garbage to fertilizer. So, individual efforts do count. I met a few amazing people working for the same cause. Mrs. Nirmala Lathi from Pune has pioneered this project and implemented in more than 200,000 homes in Maharashtra. Mr. Kaustubh Tamhankar from Thane is implementing zero garbage at home, and he has even gone further to avoid non-degradable plastic from going in dust bin. One society in Thane is implementing a zero garbage project from last 9 years successfully. Many more people are coming up for this cause. A small group of Nyaan Prabodhini in my town helped manage the flower waste during Ganeshotsav.

Few big things to add. Adarsh school of Badlapur implemented Ecosan sanitation system with municipal corporations help and got great recognition. Similarly, in recent news, Municipal Corporation of Navi Mumbai got recognition for its 3 plants for treating waste water. The huge hoardings in South Mumbai constantly bombard on people to stop spreading waste. These measures are good, and will help in long run to fight the ever increasing garbage. But we are apparently addressing the tip of the iceberg. Big projects can handle garbage, but “increasing garbage” is the real nightmare which we are facing. Day after day, garbage is increasing. The land and ocean, both are proving short to accommodate our garbage. Someday, we might start using the Moon and the Mars to dump the garbage.

My garbage to fertilizer efforts are required lifelong, and wont stop now. It has given a cause to my life. It’s a long way to go, and I am trying to mold myself accordingly. The busy life always tries to pull me away from that, but the cause is great enough to keep this going. I believe that whatever nature gives us, we need to give it back in a proper manner. I have been getting a good response from people who adopted this method, and hope that this awareness spreads the new paradigm”I own my garbage”.

Amey Joshi

E-mail - trekamey@yahoo.com

Date – 13th January, 2010