Teaching toddlers niceties of disposing garbage

 Nine-year-old Tarun returned home from school with a new pet - a maggot! Sounds odd but true.  This is what most schoolchildren do after attending a live bug workshop at Daily Dump, learning how garbage can be transformed into compost with the help of insects such as maggots.

Driven by the adage — “Catching them Young”, the eight-year-old set-up in Indiranagar popular for its Khambas--three layered terracotta pots for home composting, shows the way by holding workshops for children.

Another workshop — “Trash Trails” — revolves around different aspects of garbage collection and segregation where children get a glimpse of people involved in the process.

As a part of the trails, the children are taken to dry waste collection centres, landfill sites so that they can see for themselves the garbage crisis looming in the City and unless concepts such as composting are not done by individuals, there is no solution to the rising mounds of garbage.

Storytelling

Daily Dump Designer Liza David, involved in conducting children’s workshops, said: “Through storytelling, pictorial books, we make efforts to drive the point to schoolchildren on how important it is to segregate waste based on whether it is recyclable, degradable or non-degradable. Almost 70 per cent of garbage in our households is organic waste, 20 per cent waste is recyclable like paper, plastic, etc. Children, by getting involved in practical activities like these, understand the concept better and make the changes at home.”

To drive home the point, a two-minute animated feature film — Khamba Fundas — has also been made in which Khamba — the home composting unit — is shown as a character with a story woven around him. The film is available on YouTube.

In the past six month, more than 10 workshops have been organised for schools in the City as well as in Jaipur and other cities to popularise the concept.

The recent Mandur garbage crisis and the 2012 Mavallipura garbage crisis have increased awareness among residents who have been turning up for garbage solutions like these.

Says Liza, “Those who buy Khambas are explained about how to go about composting. We want people to learn it so that more and more become aware and do their bit in saving the environment.”

She said that it takes about two months for garbage to turn into useful compost after following the due procedure. “Many customers come to sell compost to us because of overproduction and we buy it,” she added.

After having sold Khambas to over 15,000 individual homes besides selling about 30 Manthan, a composting solution for corporate offices, tech parks etc, Daily Dump has launched Aaga, a large composter which caters to about 20 homes for turning garbage into useful compost.