Better Late Than Never

Every time I drove through the Pallikaranai road with the beautiful lake and its migratory birds on one side and garbage landfill on the other side, I felt the earth would succumb to human exploitation sooner or later and it was time for us to act!

It’s a contrasting scenario and I have always felt the need to decrease the degradable garbage filling the land space. I have always been keen on recycling all these years, being a regular client of paperman.com and kuppathotti.com.

This lock down has been difficult for me to find ways and means to recycle things as many agencies had closed down their services due to the non-availability of manpower and lack of enough revenue; some had moved to their home towns or changed their jobs.

I had always thought about composting and have wanted to do it for many years. I found the lockdown the best muhurtham (auspicious time) to start with. This lockdown has given us time to reinvent ourselves, slow down our pace of life and bring out all our creative talents. Actually, it has made us rethink many things about ourselves, our purpose of living, our environment and mainly our co-existence with nature.

Composting is a very good method to turn our biodegradable waste into manure. As we all know, nature can very well do its own composting at all times but for human interference!

As humans, if we can start the habit of composting, we can decrease the amount of garbage filling the land space. About 50-60% of the landfill garbage comes under degradable waste and mixing this with non-degradable waste delays the natural composting process. I should thank my sister who has been doing composting for many years.

THE PROCESS

To begin with, we need to get the khamba or the earthen pot based on our family size and the amount of degradable waste we produce. Each and every family member should be responsible for the segregation of degradable and non-degradable waste.

Once separated, we need to pour the degradable garbage into the khamba with the remix powder (coconut coir, also called cocopeat) that is supplied along with the khamba. Once a week, we can add the neem powder and microbes which are also supplied to us. It just takes 3-5 minutes of our time which I’m sure all of us can spare.

We can keep filling the khamba and keep shifting tiers to let the older tier decompose. It might take 1.5-2 months for every batch to produce manure which can then be used for our own garden or for roadside plants, parks; this manure can be sold in the market too.

Many of us feel it is clumsy and smelly to do composting. But in reality, it is not so. There are organizations like Daily Dump who manufacture the earthen pots (khamba), remix powder, neem powder and microbes periodically and dealers who give us clear teaching materials to guide us through the process. They are also happy to clear our doubts and answer queries when approached. There are ways to overcome the maggot and ant infestation which form the life of the composting pile helping the degradation process the natural way.

We get everything from nature and it is our responsibility to give back to nature what it deserves.

So… what are you waiting for?

Please overcome the INERTIA and start composting for a CLEAN AND GREEN EARTH and SAVE OUR PLANET. I can assure you that you will be immensely satisfied that you have done something for the planet we live in!