Cynics can’t see what activists do. Or, is it the other way around? Whatever maybe the case, you have Swachagraha rolled out before you in all its splendour inviting you to a journey you have never heard of.

Swachagraha is a campaign ideated and executed by Solid Waste Management Round Table, Bangalore, inviting citizens and institutions to take a one-week pledge and challenge themselves against sending their organic waste to landfills. From there on, a guided discovery begins which will transform the way you looked at and treated your organic waste all this while.

To start with, you will learn to create three Green Spots—to compost, to grow an organic kitchen garden and to cook safe and healthy food with the ingredients harvested from the same. You could join the campaign as an individual, a family, an organisation, a school, a corporate or just anyone else.

This is what you need to do: Visit www.swachagraha.in and order a ready-to-use composting kit of your choice. Read all the information available on the website before you place an order. Once you get your kit, follow the instructions and start composting at your home. If you stick to it for a week, you will not want to throw your waste out on the second and third week. By the end of third week or so, you will have the compost ready! Use it for growing your already existing kitchen garden or create a new one. Very soon, you will transform yourself into an urban farmer.

At institutional level, you could order kits for the entire staff and challenge them to grow three Green Spots. You can set up inhouse volunteer teams to keep a tab on the progress. This can turn out to be a wonderful team-building exercise, too.

You will connect with this concept instantly if you are that person who felt a tinge of pain when you threw out organic waste because you simply didn’t know how to go about transforming it into a priceless resource. You will connect with this concept even better if you are someone who will surrender yourself to invisible forces of Nature that lets you see this beautiful planet in a grain of compost you created.

Years of expertise and experience at play

This balcony belonging to Priyanka Kumari, Mumbai, explains in detail the beauty of having your own composting system at home and grow a garden using the same compost.

This concept is a result of observing behavioural patterns over the last eight-nine years by SWM practitioners and experts. Once you start composting, it’s difficult to throw out organic waste because you have already experienced its worth. Already, thousands of Bangaloreans have bid a goodbye to landfills by refusing to send their organic waste out and have been cultivating a different experience on their terraces and around homes by growing healthy, pesticide-free food.

Unique in many ways

This campaign aims to reach out to one million people. It’s perhaps the first such exercise where SWM practitioners, vendors, BBMP and KSPCB have come together to launch and sustain a campaign on a massive scale. Led by composting expert Vani Murthy, the face of the campaign, the volunteer network will guide you every step of the way to make sure your efforts come a full circle.

Go ahead and take a pledge. If you need a nudge, click the link below and get going!