Saturday, January 21, 2012

Dumped and how!

The idea was first proposed by my husband, and it was met with a very strong protest. My argument was that the idea is great, noble and all that. But nope. It aint gonna happen in OUR house. Hmph!

Ok ok..

I'll start from the beginning!

We (me and my husband) often have pondered over the waste that gets produced in a household each day. Waste- that ranges from vegetable peels, broken glass, plastic, paper, left over food and what not. Usually we dump it all in one place. It gets picked up and further gets dumped all together in one bigger place again.. And so on and on.. What will be the state of 'that place' a few years from now? A perfect cocktail of the toxic and the organic that will float around for a while and then get into the eco system- and the eventually emerge back out of our taps, our nostrils, food etc.

That's not good is it? What do we do then?
Daily Dump, a revolutionary project that was initiated by Poonam Bir Kasturi, in Bangalore had the answer! She is an NID graduate btw.Trust the NIDians to come up with such remarkable ideas! :-).


The idea was simple- sort the waste intelligently. "Use" the organic waste and help it break down to become a nutritious manure or compost, that can go back to the earth to enrich it instead of it becoming a congealed mass of plastic and paper, mixed with Sambar and vegetables, garnished with glass!!


Daily Dump, offers very practical and simple solutions to the problem of waste management. They have devised a variety of products to enable people to compost right at home, garden, terrace or balconies. Have a look here.

When my husband proposed to get such a composter going in our house, I had my doubts and plenty of that too. Staying in an apartment on the 1st floor, I was not sure if having a "smelly", "gooey", "maggots infested", "germs" haven was such a good idea! But much against by protests and shooting down all my "practical" arguments, he went right ahead and bought one home! No. TWO home!

I must say, that I had to (gladly) eat my own words, as all my doubts and fears fell flat!! The apparatus is rather easy to maintain. There is no smell, maggots and the like.Well, so far at least!

For starters, you have to start chucking the bio-degradable and non bio- degradable waste separately. Then deposit the bio-degradable waste it into the 'khamba' (thats the name of the model we bought!) The khamba essentially is unit of 3 earthen pots stacked one top of the other. It has tiny holes on the surface and also had a lid.

First the waste has to be put into the topmost/ 1st pot. When that pot gets full, you have interchange it with the 2nd pot. When that also, gets full, you have to dump the 1st pot contents (which would already be half way with the disintegration process) into the third pot, and start using it to fill the waste now. That is pretty much the cycle. People from Daily Dump can also come for a demo, and also for "service" upon request. Here is what the khamba looks like.


Of course, there are you few things that you have to be careful with, but nothing that you will need to call a Fire Brigade for! It can easily be done by anybody.

I think the product is very well designed, well networked and most importantly, the company and the people behind it have their heart in the right place. All we need to do is give it a try. Do visit their web site:- http://dailydump.org/. This mall step will definitely go a long long way.

I have to do something about the smirk on my husband's face!!!! ;-)


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