Comment

The availability of landfills for dumping waste isbecoming increasingly difficult in Bangalore today. Moreover, landfills pose a huge environment challenge and a health hazard. In view of this, apartment complexes and gated communities can look at ways of recycling kitchen waste themselves, instead of dumping their waste in the bins or just giving it to garbage collection vans.

One eco-friendly way of recycling kitchen waste is vermicomposting. I recently heard about an NGO in Bangalore called Centre for Environment Education (CEE) that educates people about this eco-friendly way of garbage disposal and assists in setting up vermi compost pits. All one needs to do is a large pit in the backyard, some cow dung or soil, water and about 100 to 200 earthworms. Mix all of it in the pit. Put your organic waste and cover it with soil, sprinkle a little water and after a month, it gets converted into manure!

However, each apartment or villa owner needs to segregate organic and inorganic waste. Organic waste includes kitchen waste like left over food, meat, leaves, grass, peels of vegetables & fruits, tea leaves, egg shells etc.

Another way one can recycle kitchen waste is by setting up a small biogas plant inside the apartment complex. Recently, I saw a biogas plant set up by an energy advisory company called Enzen Global in a tech park in Electronic City. The biogas plant converts the kitchen waste from the tech park’s canteen, into cooking gas!

It’s a win-win situation. The tech park does not have to spend on hiring waste disposal vans for dumping the kitchen waste. The waste gets converted into gas which is re-used for cooking in the canteen. The residual ash in the biogas also finds use as manure in the garden.

A small apartment complex with around 500 – 1000 occupants might require a 250 kg capacity biogas plant or higher depending upon the quantity of kitchen waste generated. There might be an initial cost of setting up a biogas plant. But what is impressive is there can be a saving of lakhs of rupees every year towards cooking gas. Of course, depending upon the feasibility and the desired return on investment, apartment complexes may
consider putting up a biogas plant.

So, all it takes is a bit of initiative and a little innovative thinking for gated communities to solve a huge issue like waste disposal!

(The columnist is an entrepreneur and a freelance journalist. You may write to her on mythili.nirvan@gmail.com)