Swachh Bharat is just not a campaign but is the way to walking on cleaner streets & scenic landscapes. We are cruising on the awareness & acceptance of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan all over. Yet, it takes those cynical eyes to gape open at overflowing bins with flies, dogs & foul order in some corner of your daily pathway.

Today, each one walking on the streets has come closer to the acceptance of not littering around or even comprehending the plastics ban. Yet, the importance of waste segregation has not been transcended beyond the conceptual sphere of geela kachra aur sukha kachra (wet waste & dry waste).

To see cleaner streets & scenic landscapes requires a paradigm shift at the awareness level of where one is littering & why! This would be steep uphill climb for a country which was smoothly functioning with littered garbage on roads. It would need the cascading impacts of mixing waste into one bin, to the masses that have just learnt to litter in the bin.  

Cutting off the scientific jargon of compostable, biodegradable, non-biodegradable, hazardous, biomedical & e-waste we need to make it a simpler way of life to just segregate what we pick & throw. Something as simple as we pick our spoons or biscuits or veggies & put it in the right shelf!

Have you ever stored milk in your shoes? Have you ever kept fruit juice in the same container of basmati rice? Tried saving space by mixing shampoo & mayonnaise? Sounds as different as chalk & cheese? Or maybe while you read these questions you thought I was out of my mind! But that’s exactly what we do while we hand over our garbage bag or litter in the roadside bin. That’s exactly what produces the foul odour & stinky dirty roadside corner.

Every waste type has different way of handling. But once we have made the jumble of food, milk, shoes, plastic, rice, shampoo, etc., no one is ready to handle & this ensures that nothing can be handled.

If we are so finicky to put our milk in the fridge, our shoes in the rack, to sieve our basmati rice, to pack our mayonnaise in air tight jars, to have separate bottles for shampoos & conditioners….then when we pick our garbage why don’t we understand, to simply NOT MIX!

~ Prachi Nimkar

As Mumbaikars we have been building castles in the sky. We all wish to be on top of the world, have a better lifestyle, want to do better at what we are doing, better than others or more so better than what we were before. We wish to have the best of gadgets, the best of rich packages & the best of smart life. While travelling to achieve this smart & better life we adore the hoardings on the way showcasing beautiful landscapes with greenery, clear blue skies & cleaner urban sprawls. Looking at those alluring hoardings we imagine ourselves taking a deep breath from our balconies into those pure air blue skies. But off the hoarding, we suddenly realize the options available on road are Survive or Stink?

A Mumbaikar being practical & moral chooses a relevant option of survive with stink! It’s a time saver option in his journey to achieve the better life showcased in the hoarding. Making way through the stink is a part & parcel enroute to the better life he dreams & struggles for daily. He storms his way under the weather till his last mile is just left with dream picture in the hoarding. While his journey passes to his last mile, he is oblivious to the fact that the climate is always changing! He keeps walking through water logged alleys of Mumbai. Yet, he has no time to think why it is so? Thus, his choice to survive with stink comes with a price that his children pay, while his soul rests in peace. For his children, the uncertainity & politics of climate change leaves only one option, to somehow survive. The stink is his child’s congenital environment. Meanwhile, the hoarding dream still peeks out alluring many, enriching the gulf between rich & poor.

Before we reach our last mile, we still stand a chance to create a third option. Survive or Stink or Segregate? Time is still giving us a golden opportunity, to segregate our denials & disposals before they completely choke the drains or pile up higher than our castles in the sky. Segregation of our own garbage is the SOS, which time is still permitting us to actually achieve the hoarding dream of pure air breathes with green urban sprawls.

Segregation of dry & wet waste is a choice we have. It’s a matter of time, if we make it a choice or not! Segregation is a decision maker for making the hoarding dream a reality in the realty.

When pleasures of gadgets conquer our family & social life we turn to social detox. It becomes a way to save & value our real relationships over the virtual. Similarly, pleasures of plastic have been eating upon every morsel of land, air & water. Therefore, it’s the crying need of the day to save our oceans, land, people & planet from the plastic penance. It’s high time to plastic detox!

How to live plastic free? It’s simply breaking the plastic addiction. The addiction roots to the convenience & economics of plastic packaging. It is a trade-off between making something from scratch & toiling for hours versus buying a pre-packaged version. A no-brainer for most! Especially, when plastic prices don’t factor in the cost of polluter pays or managing its disposal. Breaking this plastic addiction is a matter of changing their habits, opinions & preconceptions to help preserve people, life & planet. The marine conservation society was the pioneer to embark on the plastic free journey & with reverence to the oceans they are protecting it’s a humble attempt to pass on the goodwill.

A day in the life of plastic detox ….

Getting Up … Yawn!

• Forget old plastic alarm clocks or don’t upgrade them! Set alarms on your multipurpose mobiles away!
• Bamboo toothbrush with corn-starch bristles
• Soap bars & likewise shampoo bars instead of bottles

Babies & Kids: How can someone so small need so much stuff? Toys, nappies, bottles, strollers, cribs: babies welcome to plastic land

• Use washable, reusable nappies – not disposable ones
• Pack your bottles & tiffins when it’s baby’s day out. No need to buy packaged food & drink!
• Ditch the cartoon character cutlery & move straight to stainless steel.
• Swap plastic toys for health–proof wooden toys
• Have a plastic –free bathtime with baby soap bars & unfinished wooden toys can dry on the side.

Breakfast

• Cook breakfast at home
• Book your milkman with glass bottles
• Pick your own fresh local fruits & veggies in cloth backs
• Don’t over stock your fridge! Just buy enough for your daily need.
• Carry your own portable coffee cup

Office & your meal deals:

• Choose stationery made from cardboard, wood, cork or recycled paper
• Pass on the goodwill amidst your team & colleagues! Yay! Earn some brownie points!
• Carry your tiffin & avoid plastic wrapped sandwiches. Have a fresh food pantry or cafeteria serving.
• Use refillable glass bottles at each desk with a common water filter
• Most importantly: take your time: Plan what you want to eat, buy (or grow) the ingredients plastic free & prepare your food at home to avoid the dreaded meal deal & all that unnecessary waste.

After work activities:

• Chuck off clinging single use idiot box & get onto the spirit of healthy sport!
• Try non-plastic sports gear, made from wool, hemp, soy or bamboo fibres – they are more expensive, but a good investment.
• Sports shoes are to find without plastic - try the ones made from recycled plastic & use them until they wear out. Log onto the reuse-shoe-program at an outlet nearby.
• Make your own nutritious snacks than branded energy bars
• In after showers avoid shampoos & face washes with microbeads

They day ends! Communicate to your kids sweet dreams of nature & mermaids in clean blue oceans….kids value the nature in the longer run! Get the kids on board – make them your in house recycling experts and plan for the next day!

As we are moving in the land of Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan we have started acknowledging the stink hitting our nose & drains choking with every form of rubbish. We are now acclimatizing to the fact that, while we are putting our resources in rubbish it’s time to turn rubbish to resource. 

Reduce, Reuse & Recycle has been a part of ancient Indian culture compared to the global scenario. It’s a matter of pride that we started off by holding the 3 R’s in our traditions. Most Indians reuse stuff (using old clothes as cleaning rags to wipe dusty furniture), connecting our old newspapers to “raddi” & selling our junk to livelihood of “apna kabadiwala”. Having our lunches served on Banana leaves which was later fed to cattle, leaving almost zero waste.

But as times are changing, we are aping the west. Moving to the cities we have become money rich & time poor. So for time savers we have the pleasures of plastics & packaging covering every morsel we eat into. The leftovers are merrily choking the drains while we are walking over piles of garbage. These piles are hovered with party of pests. All this is leading to an end of a money rich to counting his medicines.

Also, the tragedy of commons is visible in landscapes of the dense urban infrastructure with no spaces left for landfills piling up. For those visiting the rich Indian heritage are strikingly hit with bad odour, ugly waste overflowing from containers outlining the streets & a daily thriving for stray animals. Thus, to the world, India is illustrated as devastating lives of rag pickers scavenging through life hazards.

Solving the problem begins with the word “segregation”. The dictionary meaning of “segregation” claims to be a noun. But in the real world it’s a verb to be acted upon. It’s the key to enthral the magic of rubbish to resource. The practitioners of “segregation” are the alchemists of the Swachh Bharat.

While it’s a mammoth task to turn old waste to gold, the future embarks on personal success stories turning waste to compost. These alchemists shall prevent almost half the growth of our piling waste mountains.

Reduce & reusing our dry waste like newspapers, cartons, tetrapaks, glass bottles, cloth bags does half of the task. Composting the remaining wet waste brings in a fresh perspective.

Composting is a nature’s cycle just like completing the yin yang concept of life. It is the being & non-being giving birth to each other. And like every other nature’s cycle it only occurs with healing of time.

With the transformational journey of new bye laws in Swachh Bharat Abhiyan towards citizens managing their own wet waste are falling preys to “instant” compost making machines. This could be a bottleneck to the awareness & acceptance of people making a cleaner India due to lack of knowledge & expertise in the science of composting.

Composting is the creation of food for mother earth with the decomposition of our food by little organisms thriving on the wet waste. It is a matter of allowing them to do their job. For a common man it’s just like the basic principle of setting curd at home.

Like no instant microorganisms can make curd in Indian environment, then how can any fully automated machine cook your compost instantly? Like no external automation can force the nature’s cycle, it’s extremely important to comprehend the compost cycle to clear the remaining wet waste

Composting is a process that progresses in stages & at each stage, certain types of microbes enter the pile and work their magic on it. Can all this happen in 24 hours, flat?

Conducting awareness meets among residents to highlight this issue is the next turning point towards Swachh Bharat. When the whole of India starts making compost instantly, then will realization takes place that someone needs to get rid off it, use it or buy it! For which natural & not instant compost matters!!!

Ref : https://www.rebekah-joan.com/blog/full-guide-to-apartment-composting

When you live in a 1BHK or 2BHK high rise tower, composting can seem impossible. It’s not like you can just start your own compost pile in your bungalow’s backyard. Simply because, a 1BHK or 2BHK in a high rise doesn’t have a backyard or maybe even a balcony. Maybe you like it that way—no yardwork—or maybe it’s because an apartment is all you can afford right now. Regardless, you’re wondering to yourself, is composting while living in an high rise tower possible? And is it a hassle?

Will it smell? Do I have the time? Is it worth the effort?

From someone who composts in an apartment, I’m here to tell you that it’s definitely possible. Not only has that, but apartment composting barely takesany effort.

Ready to see how? Dive in!

Where in My Apartment Should I Store My Compost?

This is the very first question every Mumbaikar would crossover. The easiest way to tackle this is use your own Home Composter | Eco Bin. For me it was easy to open in the middle of cooking meal and did I mention its super cheap! It barely takes any space and is compactly closed method.

How to use a Home Composter | Eco Bin ?

Composting is no rocket science! If you know how to set curd or dahi at home, Congratulations you got the science behind composting as well! Yes the science remains the same! Just like you use a spoonful of starter, to stir into a bowl of lukewarm milk, exactly the same way I took a starter and mixed in with my kitchen waste.

This easiest and go to method and probably the cheapest professional way in an apartment with no layering to do. Simply do not put your kitchen food waste mixed with other dry waste like plastic, milk cartons, medicine strips, etc. Drop in this food waste into the Home Composter | Eco Bin.

Personally, I use the Eco Bin in my 17^th floor apartment in the flower peg space of the livng room. It’s stainless steel (which means no rusting in Mumbai’s humid weather), has a great handle for rotating (which means no energy), comes with sleek perforated aeration internally (which means healthy compost with no bad smells) and completely closing lid (which means no flies and no odour). Another value added is it’s placed on a stand so no rodents dare enter!