Flowery tale

Fresh flowers have been an indispensable part of most Indian festivals, but discarding them has always been a sticky affair.

Neither can they be thrown in the regular dustbins, nor can they be discarded anywhere else.

In the thick of Ganpati and Bandra Fair celebrations, the western suburbs has been generating tons of such flowers. Taking these festivals into consideration, the H west ward has devised a way for the last four years to make the residents’ job easy and eco-friendly.

Flowers pitted
The ward has constructed a huge pit measuring 15X20 metres in Bandra Reclamation. Divided into five beds, the nirmalya (flowers and leaves) can be discarded here and converted to manure in an eco-friendly way. “Around 10 metric ton of nirmalya is generated during these two festivals.

We will process them in the pit, so that they can be converted to manure and used in the BMC gardens,” said Chandrakant Tambe, junior overseer of the Solid Waste Management department of the ward. “This might make people conscious and they might stop discarding these flowers into the sea,” he added.

Tambe said that at the end of the festivals a dedicated vehicle would go around to collect the nirmalya from societies and mandals, so that all of it can be put in the pit. “People can store these flowers in a separate nirmalya bin till the vehicle collects it.

Several nirmalya kalash have also been put at important immersion points, such as Bandstand, Carter Road, Bandra Talav, Ram Mandir, and other places, so that the flowers are not thrown into the sea,” said Tambe.

Khar resident, Robin Sharma, who brings Ganpati home, is happy with the ward’s initiative. “We bring Ganpati home every year and needless to say, heaps of flowers are generated. The special nirmalya van collecting them from our homes will make our jobs easier. What better way to use these flowers than converting them to manure, that too in an eco-friendly process?” said Sharma.

Recycled and reused
The process of converting the discarded flowers and leaves to manure takes about 45 days and works in three stages­ collection, sorting, and distribution. After the flowers are collected, they are first sorted. Plastic, thermocol and wax items, mainly found in flowers collected from the Mount Mary Basilica, are separated from the flowers.

They are then put into the pit and covered with a layer of cow dung. The layers are interchanged after two days and a temperature of 35-40 degree Celsius is maintained during the process. After 15-20 days, the process of vermicomposting starts, where earthworms are left inside the pit for decomposition. Within 45 days, the organic manure is ready to be used.

Civic activist Anandini Thakoor, too, lauded the ward’s initiative. “It is an excellent initiative to construct this pit for the huge amount of flowers generated during Ganpati and Bandra fair. As responsible citizens, everybody should preserve these flowers and not throw them carelessly into the sea. They should help the BMC in their
initiative and not be an obstruction for them,” said Thakoor.