Save the environment, Pollution, Waste, Recycle, Climate change
Our everyday lives are punctuated with these words. And though we may truly want to do something about it, the futility of one’s miniscule effort seems overwhelming.
But what if I told you there was such a simple way to make a difference? Would you take that small step forward with us?
A small group of Panchshila Park residents has been trying to create a plan for our colony to become a zero-waste colony. We have studied other colonies such as Sarv Priya Vihar, Garden Estate, Vasant Kunj, and West End which have been successfully practicing individual home composting and collective colony composting so that the only waste that reaches the landfills from their homes are the materials that no ‘kabaddi wallah’ will buy because it cannot be recycled.
Residents of Panchshila Park must be aware that someone from an organization called Wellbeing Out of Waste (WOW) visited your home during the months of June through August to explain how waste needs to be segregated. After those visits to the entire colony Panchshila Park has seen an amazing increase in compliance towards correct waste segregation. In August the survey conducted by WOW found that E Block is 98% compliant, N Block 85-88 % compliant and S Block 80-85% compliant. We can all give ourselves a pat on the back for this.
On Sat Nov 25, we held an hour-long workshop on home composting at the Panchshila Montessori School. There were three parts to this workshop. We started with two residents Ritu and Renuka sharing with us how they have been successfully composting all their kitchen and garden waste, answering many questions which have worried us and prevented people from starting their own composting.
Next we had Mr. Rao, technical advisor to WOW. He gave a presentation on what home composting entails and how we can go about it in our homes. He demonstrated the use of a simple kit produced by WOW that one could use. There are other such kits available in the market as well and we can all choose ones that suit our individual needs best.
The last speaker was Fabian, who has been instrumental in making Sarv Priya Vihar an award winning zero waste colony for many years. He spoke of his personal experience with creating zero kitchen waste in his home; how he started composting in an empty flower pot, keeping it very simple and easy to follow. It was a very interactive workshop and concerns about odours, maggots and insects, dirt, safety for pets and confined spaces were discussed.
For those of you who wished you had come for the workshop, here is an outline of steps involved in composting:
1. Choose an area in your garden or balcony that preferably gets some sun and air circulation.
2. Select a container large enough to contain your fresh kitchen waste of 30 days (about a regular bucket size). You will need two containers and a shallow tub or tray. You may decide to go with a plastic container or an earthenware container. You will need a tub or tray under this to collect some liquid that forms as a part of the decomposing process. (WOW found that an average home of 4-5 people creates organic kitchen waste of 800gms-1kg a day).
3. Make sure your kitchen waste is properly segregated. The only waste that should go into this container is primarily fresh organic waste- vegetable and fruit waste. Paper without any print or oil and egg shells are fine too. The smaller the pieces, the easier the decomposing process. No milk, oil, cooked food and meat/bones should go into this as it will delay the decomposing process. Yogurt however is fine and will in fact, aid the process. 4. A dry organic material like coco peat or crumbled dry leaves are required to layer the garbage. If you do not have enough small dry leaves (some leaves such as from a rubber tree do not decompose well),
