Cleaning Up Behind Us

Anonymous by choice and shy of publicity,this group of regular citizens who want to silently work at keeping our streets clean scored a viral hit on the internet a couple of months ago when thousands watched and shared a video of one of its spot fixes on Facebook. This cleanup on Brigade Road in central Bangalore with Chhoti si asha by AR Rahman as the background score showed masked volunteers bagging trash,peeling movie posters off dirty walls and painting them,and cleaning urine stains to turn a sorry-looking pavement into a bright,walkable stretch in a matter of hours. The video struck a chord with the average Bangalorean,and The Ugly Indians motto of sincerity Kaam Chalu Mooh Bandh only work,no talk inspired smaller groups in Chennai,Hyderabad and Delhi to adopt littered streets. Fans of the group have declared on Facebook that they want to start by cleaning up Mayur Vihar and Kalyanpuri in Delhi,Thiruvanmiyur in Chennai and parts of Vapi,Gujarat.

On the sidelines of the fortnight-long Bengaluru Recyclying Habba 2011,a first-of-its-kind event held last month,another young volunteer with The Ugly Indian said Bangalore is fast becoming a centre for solutions to a cleaner life. I started volunteering with eco groups three years ago. Back then,activities were restricted to cleaning up Cubbon Park or going to schools to teach kids to recycle. My friends didnt want any of it. Now,I bring along at least three friends to spot-fixes and re-use awareness programmes. In fact,I am considering interning with a clean-tech start-up, said the 27-year-old human resources professional.

V Shoba

Monisha Narke,

Are You Reusing,Reducing,Recycling RUR,Mumbai

For the past two years,Are You Reusing,Reducing,Recycling RUR,a group of eco-conscious Mumbai citizens led by Monisha Narke,an industrial engineering and engineering management graduate from Stanford University,has been conducting workshops on green living and investing one8217;s wet waste into compost. But one of its major successes has been convinving vendors in major Mumbai markets to reduce the use of plastic shopping bags.

Narke,37, liaised with vegetable vendors from Pali,Bandra and Matunga markets and came up with a plan. We gave them cloth bags in different sizes to sell to customers for Rs 20 to Rs 40. While most of the money went towards producing these bags,there was still some left over to give them a commission to encourage them to persist with the practice, she says. Now,many markets in Mumbai have picked up on this trend.

Narke has also tied up with Sarkari Bhandar stores to make waste management easier for citizens. It8217;s one thing to sort your wet and dry garbage,and another to make sure it is disposed of responsibly, she says. All you need to do is collect your milk and juice cartons and drop them off at Sarkari Bhandar,which has outlets all over Mumbai. Once a week,a truck collects these recyclable items from the stores. Last month,we collected enough cartons to save 20 trees from being cut.

Afsha Khan

Bharati Chaturvedi,

Chintan Environmental Research and Action Group,Delhi

Bharati chaturvedis day begins at 5 am every morning with walking her dog,Carbon. After that,its back to the business of running the Chintan Environmental Research and Action Group,a Delhi-based NGO that works with ragpickers in the Delhi-NCR area. Set up in December 1999 to address issues of sustainable consumption and environmental and social justice,An environmentalist and a writer,she conceived Chintan as a partnership between the urban poor in the informal sector and people like herself advocates of environmental justice.

The heroes of Delhis waste management system are its 1.5 lakh-strong rag-pickers,who work outside the system to make sure waste is recycled and that the capitals gutters dont overflow. We provide these rag-pickers with uniforms,ID cards and ration cards and then they go door to door,collecting garbage. This garbage is then segregated into wet and dry waste,recyclable and non-recyclable waste,and then the saleable items like paper,foil,tins,plastic bottles,cans,tetra packs and other plastic items are sold to recyclers, says Panchali Shyam Dev,head of programmes at Chintan.

Chaturvedi,who has a Masters degree in international public policy from Johns Hopkins University,US,has been instrumental in shaping the NGOs programmes on this front. Currently a Senior Fellow of the Synergos Institute in New York,Chaturvedi is also one of the founders of Srishti,an environmental group at Delhi University,and consultant to various national and international organisations working on environmental issues.

Prajakta Hebbar

Poonam Bir Kasturi,

The Daily Dump,Bangalore

Poonam Bir Kasturi is a plain talker. Do you know what happens to the trash you dump in your dustbin? she asks. At her home in Indiranagar,Bangalore,a two-storeyed structure set in a charming lane crowded with trees,terracotta pots of all shapes and sizes are stacked in the shadow of neem trees and coconut palms,on staircases and in corners. In the living room,glass and plastic bottles lie in a neat heap on a rug. In tights and a red sweater,Kasturi is explaining waste segregation to an entrepreneur from Meghalaya who wants to clone her venture,The Daily Dump. Bangalore alone generates 4,000 tonnes of waste every day. This waste is mixed and ends up in landfills because most of us dont know how we can turn some of it into compost that is useful to the soil, says Kasturi.

A household composting solutions company,The Daily Dump was born in 2006 after Kasturi had spent two years experimenting with her own garden waste,often with smelly consequences. I was tired of teaching theory. This venture was born of my desire to explore the psychology of throwing waste, she says. An industrial design graduate from the National Institute of Design,Ahmedabad,who also co-founded the Srishti School of Art,Design and Technology in the city,Kasturi,49,is the brain behind the simple yet powerful design of the daily dump,a three-tiered earthen khamba pole that mimics natural decomposition. Priced at Rs 600 and above,and crafted by the potters of Palamner village in Andhra Pradesh,each stack of three pots,separated by a mesh between each layer,is well-ventilated for aerobic composting,fits in the corner of ones balcony or garden,and odourlessly turns kitchen and garden waste into fertile compost in the course of three months.

With over 4,500 customers in the city,The Daily Dump has not just inspired Bangaloreans to take up gardening,but also generated 15 business clones across the country. It takes an investment of just a few thousand rupees to start a venture like this, says Kasturi,adding that her company has never made losses. Kasturi does not advertise her products,but offers demos to those uninitiated in the science of composting. What if one doesnt have a garden to put the compost to good use in? Offer the compost to a tree in your neighbourhood, she says. Have you ever spoken to a tree? Try it sometime.

V Shoba