I started composting and waste segregation a year ago. A lot of awareness was created through newspapers and social media, which prompted me to to start adopting more eco-friendly ways at home.
I segregate wet and dry waste. All the wet waste is given to the NMC garbage collection trucks and I compost the wet waste. We have a big garden at our home, so we had a compost bag (normally used in farms) manufactured for our garden.
We dump our wet household waste and dry leaves from the garden in it, and an amazing fertilizer is created in less than one-and-a-half months.
We use that fertilizer on our terrace garden. We also have a composting bin in our garden. We are a family of four, residing in Vijay Nagar, and all of us are passionate about waste segregation. We don’t give any wet waste to the NMC garbage collectors. The household help is also instructed to throw garbage according to the system we have devised.
We are also quite conscious about plastic usage. Long before the ban was placed on plastic, we had minimized use of plastic everywhere. In fact, we strictly use cloth bags for shopping, and there are extra cloth bags placed in our vehicles, in case we decide to buy something impromptu. We have a mission to get rid of plastic completely from our homes, and reuse whatever plastic we have remaining.
Unfortunately, our efforts alone are not enough.
We are moving towards the concept of ‘zero waste living’. According to that, one does not leave out anything. Every type of waste is reused in some way or the other.
The aim is also to spread awareness about these things and move on to community level waste disposal and segregation. I am also planning to get in touch with our area corporator to mobilize our neighbours, and collectively implement eco-friendly waste disposal habits.
If the world maintains its status quo, we are truly headed for a disaster. We need to save the planet for the future.