As we stood contemplating the makings of our mini Urban Forest, little did Anita Rathee (B 63 South City 1) and I know that the trees that we had brought to our neighbourhood had already
started weaving their magic of a ‘wood-wide web,’” as Wohlleben puts it. Before we knew it, during our exchanges, Anita Rathee who is the Convener of the Eco Club at the Government College for Girls, Sector14, Gurugram, invited me to make an online address to the students of the College, on Waste Management, on the 16 September 2020. The seeds of effective handling of Waste were sown. This was followed by a request to reinforce the same message, but this time, in person, on the 30 September 2022.
The fallout of those intensely interactive sessions was very positive and with Anita’s perseverance, in August 2021, the College began segregating its Waste into Wet and Dry categories. They began composting their Wet waste by natural composting methods, using 6 pits in their 32-acre campus. The Compost Pits receive about 20 kg of kitchen waste every day from the 6 Hostels which house 850 girls.
Until January 2023, ten thousand eight hundred (10,800) Kg of Wet Waste was diverted from the Landfills.
As if this were not enough encouragement to those of us who are crusading for the adage that “Waste is not Waste until you waste it”, the College also began segregating its plastic waste. The icing on the cake was when, on 2 January 2023, plastic waste weighing 110 Kg was collected from the College premises, to be sent to Recyclers. These pick-ups are regularly facilitated by ‘Slim Homes’ in partnership with ‘Garbage Free India’
With the advent of the Youth Brigade on the march towards effective Waste Management, surely no efforts will go to waste.
by Dr Savita Nagpal (www.slimhomes.in)
