Hello everybody, Do you recognize me? Well I am the one who is responsible to keep your house, city and nation clean. Every evening maids of your house would put me into the dustbin and next morning, you dump me into the BBMP (Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palika – basically Municipal corporation) truck where I meet my brothers and we, the garbage bags complain about the way you guys treat us.

I am a garbage bag and I am here to tell you my woeful tale, a sad journey about how I am filled with last night’s leftovers, vegetable peels, paper, plastics and the list is countless. But have you ever thought what happens to me after I come out of your house? I am ditched and dumped like a dejected lover singing “Why this Kolavari di”? I am thrown outside the city wreaking havoc on the surrounding and polluting the environment. Mother Earth is crying “please take care of me, my kids. As you have celebrated one more year of world environment day on 5th of June with campaign, rallies and newspaper articles please do something different this time. I, your garbage bag will tell you how can you help me and hence yourself and make this planet clean and green. Let’s handle garbage judiciously.

As you know charity begins at home, first do your bit. I know that all the mothers in this world love to cook for their kids, but do you know how much organic waste is generated every day in our own kitchen? About 700-2000grams.Vegetable waste, leftover food, fruits contains about 60% of water. So you fill 60% of water in garbage bags and waste highly precious hiked petrol to ship it away. This waste when mixed with various hazardous wastes like medicine, leaked batteries or electronic stuff like bulbs is a threat to our earth as most of the waste is thrown into landfills without treating it. It is the inception point for various epidemics and pests. It is poisonous for the cattle who feed on it. It’s you who crib and complain about the unhealthy cities and blame the govt. for not doing anything. Aren’t you responsible for all this? Can’t you make a difference? Ah! you have to go to office and don’t have time to clean your own house dirt forget community work. Please don’t do community work but start from your home.

Yes you can …. you can segregate! Segregate the waste it doesn’t take more time than the time wasted in cribbing about the system. So the first step to become a green citizen is to segregate. Divide green like vegetable waste and brown waste like garden leaves from E-Waste, recyclable, hazardous waste and keep it in a separate bin. This would reduce landfills; conserve energy and fuel which is used for transporting this waste.

Now you will tell me OK! I have segregated the organic waste what next? The problem remains the same. So here is the solution –“Compost”, Mulch or Natural fertilizer. Gardeners call it as black gold.

Compost is a great nutrient rich soil amendment which is organic and helps to regain soil’s integrity. Everyday about 1/3 of the garbage can be decomposed at the source i.e. your kitchen. So let’s understand how to compost and its benefits.

You don’t have to do the PHD in composting as it’ a natural process of decay. All you have to do is to handle it scientifically. Major Challenge which youwould face to start the process of composting is “space”. A growing city like Bangalore faces space crisis as most of us have balcony in the name of open space and to start the things at community level is not the piece of cake for everyone. But as said necessity is the mother of invention, initiatives like “Ugly Indian” and “Daily Dump” come into picture. I am not promoting them or am I brand ambassador of these organizations but I think this is a way to put our first step toward becoming an environment caring citizen. Daily Dump has come up with the idea of waste management in form of Khambha Singh –That’s what they call their earthly stylish terracotta pots which not only would add beauty to your balcony but also help to manage green waste .Store your leftovers after cooking every day and mix it well during the weekend and wait for the magic to happen. It is possible that we may face issues like pests, worm, bad ordure and rodent attack but daily dump has solution for that also in form of biodegradable salts which can be mixed with the compost. It takes around 60-90 days for the compost to be ready. This can be used for your plants and thus saving few bucks in buying chemical fertilizer and look you have started organic farming. Benefits of composting are innumerable, to list down few are

As you compost , most of organic waste would be handled at the source hence less number of garbage bags.
Your plants will show better growth results due to organic manure as compared to chemical fertilizer
Money of Tax payers which is wasted in handling garbage by govt. could be utilized for better project like infrastructure and medical and education.
You can help Rag-picker, because till rag picking is a source of livelihood and if we give them clean used polythene which is not messed up with curry and eatables .they can also earn some more money.

Last but not the least “Waste which is wasted is resource wasted”

please do your bit.As there is a Urdu saying

“Aasaaman mein Suraakh hoga zarur, Ek Pathar toh tabiyaat se uchalo yaaro”

Means “there will be a hole in sky, just try once with your full heart”