Waste is Money, Green Activist Demonstrates Home Composting

Addressing the students of Green Beans, The Environment Society of Kamala Nehru College, Mr. T.R.N Rao encouraged people to take up home composting as part of Social Responsibility. Regarding the gathering of students as ‘Young India,’ he mentioned that the future of the environment is in their hands. “We (our generation) have already done our part,” he said. 

He was there to demonstrate his technique of waste management and making compost. A chemical engineer, a retired BEL employee, today Mr. Rao works wholly on producing compost at home which can be used to grow vegetables. It is a win-win job for reducing waste and growing organic plants. 

He said that he was keen on developing ways of waste management seeing that most of the waste produced at home is biodegradable. Speaking about his inspiration, he narrated that he came across a small piece in a Telugu newspaper supplement on Aruna Sekhar from Hyderabad, who dealt with Waste Management Solutions in large and small scale. He visited her to gain knowledge about the same and acknowledges her as ‘Guru.’ 

Mr. Rao runs the New Future Charitable Society which envisions to tackle ‘the garbage issue’ in the country. He had been experimenting since 2016 and had developed a home composting kit for Rs.4000. He shared that people liked his idea but were reluctant to spend money for it. “Using Jugaad, I then brought the cost down to Rs.600,”he mentioned. Now, a lot of people are accepting his idea and his product. 

The economic composting kit of Rs.600 contains coco peat, a liquid with human friendly bacteria like lactobacillus and two buckets for creating compost from kitchen waste. The compost can be made in a time period of 4 to 6 weeks. 

Encouraging students and teachers to grow their own vegetables, he stated, “Bazaar ka Hara palak asal me kitna kala hai, aapko kya pata.” (You don’t know how unhealthy/black the green vegetables in the market are.) He had brought beautiful plants from his own terrace that had been grown from the compost. 

The problem of garbage is huge. The MCD figures he referred state that 14400 tonnes of garbage is produced per day in the capital. Emphasizing on individual responsibility of waste management, he quoted, “The generator of waste must be responsible for its disposal.”  

In terms of economics, he explained that on buying kitchen ingredients, one pays for waste as well! So, the skin of fruits and vegetables shouldn’t be simply wasted. Once you start using waste for creating something, you shall start liking waste and gradually there will be a day when the city shall have no mountains of waste as the one in Ghazipur.  

T.R.N Rao is looking to diversify operations by community composting and large scale composting methods. He mentions that he is even open to plead and request people to participate in waste management and save the environment.