Merci et au revoir, Claire!

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‘Earth Citizen’ Claire Rao

Guitar strings, candle waste, broken bangles…

These are the things, among many other, that environmental activist Claire Rao has currently listed out as her top priorities that need urgent sorting-out and has been doing everything possible to make sure they reach proper recycling destinations. This has to happen before she herself lands in France, her home country, after over a decade of life lived here in Bangalore within what she calls, “our ecological limits”. Continue reading →

Soil Recipe-5: Fungal diseases? This coconut-buttermilk solution can pack a powerful punch!

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The secret of this Soil Recipe lies in the simplicity of its ingredients. When prepared to perfection, this recipe containing coconut, buttermilk, turmeric, asafoetida and fruit rejects can help your plants develop resistance against fungal diseases. Plants grow healthy and begin to flower profusely. Try this recipe and share it among your friends. It does take a little effort to save our own living environment from being poisoned by pesticides. But it will all be worth it. Continue reading →

Zero-waste temple: This is where, my friends, God smiles!

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There’s this beautiful peepal tree with its roots resting in infinity and boughs arching over the Sri Shakthi Kalyana Mahaganapathi Temple located at Kalyana Nagar, Banaswadi.

True, almost every temple or village in India has at least one such tree standing tall in all its nakedness with a lump of sacred threads wound around it. No one can say for sure what each thread would mean individually: Pain, anguish, victory, desire, devotion, gratitude, joy or frustration. But weave them together, a firm pattern of meaning emerges on its own: unconditional surrender. Continue reading →

This 24-hour composter was on fire, literally!

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A simple human error resulted in this machine catching fire and damaging the roof of DSR Woodwinds apartment’s compost room six months ago. It seems beyond repair now and has been dumped in the parking lot. (Pics: SH)

This is an incident that unfolded at DSR Woodwinds apartment, Sarjapur Road. An automatic 24-hour machine given by the builder to compost kitchen waste caught fire when a staff member mistakenly switched on the machine after sundown. Within hours, the machine was spewing out flames and the roof got damaged. The smoke spread. The staff somehow managed to sneak into the compost room and put out the fire. Since then the machine, which comes loaded with promises of turning precious green waste into valuable compost, has been gathering dust in the community’s parking lot. (For more technical details on these machines, please read this post.) Continue reading →

Community composting method-13: Got a tonne of kitchen waste? NeoAkruthi organic digester has the answer

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My own 2013 experiment using earthworms for kitchen waste composting turned out to be such a disaster that I decided to keep it limited only to garden waste. But when Bangalore-based Anil Kumar, MD, Akruthi Enviro Solutions Private Limited, told me that their organic waste digester uses earthworms to process even 500+ kgs of kitchen waste mixed with garden waste per day, I thought I was opening a new chapter in vermi-composting. Continue reading →