| What do you do with the vegetable peels, eggshells, | | | | leaves. No dry leaves to be found? Put in shredded |
| tea leaves and leftover food from your kitchen? | | | | newspaper instead. Give it all a stir once in a while. |
| Dump them in the bin and forget about it? What if | | | | It's a bit like cooking actually, says Poonam. |
| you could use all of that to make compost at home? | | | | Once the contents of the first pot start piling up, |
| Before you protest about living in an apartment with | | | | bring the second pot to the top. By the time you pile |
| limited space, time constraints and the entire process | | | | this one up the contents of the original pot (now at |
| of compost making being messy, direct it to Daily | | | | the second rung) would have shrunk and you can |
| Dump. | | | | shift it to the bottom, bringing the bottom one up |
| Established by National Institute of Design (N.I.D) | | | | and starting the cycle again. |
| trained industrial designer and design teacher, Poonam | | | | Once your manure is ready it will look like dried tea |
| Bir Kasturi, Daily Dump shows the way to go green | | | | leaves and smell of rich earth. Sieve and use. |
| the easy, by offering ways to manage your | | | | The composting process does have its share of |
| household waste. They have a range of home | | | | cringe-inducing moments. Maggots form inside the pot |
| composting units in terracotta that come in different | | | | at one stage but they aid the process and can't get |
| sizes and not only look good but work equally well | | | | out of the pot so you needn't worry. You also get a |
| too. The end result is good quality manure for your | | | | fair share of fruit flies at times but once again, these |
| plants, vouched by the green lawns in Poonam's | | | | are harmless. As for rats, the pots are designed to |
| garden! Born out of an enquiry on how to manage | | | | be rodent free. To stop it from smelling much, you |
| household waste, this is an ongoing project with plans | | | | can pick up lemongrass spray from Daily Dump. |
| to develop a mechanized composter for homes and | | | | Traveling? Let the pots be. No fresh waste means |
| getting city builders interested in placing composting | | | | no need to stir. |
| units with each flat. Incidentally, she was nominated | | | | The pots are best kept in your yard if you have one |
| for the INDEX Award for this project, a prestigious | | | | or in a spare balcony of your apartment. Have a tiny |
| international design award. | | | | flat? Get the gamlas that hardly take up space. The |
| Wondering why on earth should you compost when | | | | best part is that the pots look very pretty and |
| the municipal van comes and takes away your daily | | | | decorative and nobody can really guess what's going |
| garbage anyway? Well, nobody's forcing you to. But | | | | on inside! |
| look at it as your tiny input towards going green. You | | | | Other ways of going green at home... |
| are reducing some amount of garbage, however | | | | Do not throw toxic electronic waste like batteries, |
| small, that ends up in a landfill all mixed up, no matter | | | | CDs, tapes, tube lights, etc in the garbage bin. |
| however much you separate it at home. | | | | Several malls and outlets in Bangalore have special |
| Poonam guides us on how to go about it... | | | | bins for the disposal of e-waste. Pile it all up and |
| Start by segregating your garbage. The composting | | | | dump it there. |
| units can take all your kitchen waste and even the | | | | Medical waste (pills, syrups) is poisonous. As there are |
| waste generated by dusting and sweeping but not | | | | no easily available disposal bins, the current best way |
| soap, plastic or metal. | | | | to get rid of it is to approach a hospital nearby. |
| The units are usually two or three tiered and require | | | | Segregate paper and plastic when you dump waste. |
| you to put in an equal mix of wet garbage and dry | | | | |