Want your housing society to start composting?

Rajeshwari Phadtare segregates waste every day. Pic/Atul Kamble

Colaba resident Rajeshwari Phadtare believes that working with soil is in her family's DNA. It's no surprise that her Instagram page, Compost Live Mumbai, has garnered so much support from Mumbai's green warriors.

Over the last one year, Phadtare has been conducting regular workshops on composting across the city. She got introduced to it four years ago. "After working in travel and shipping companies for about eight years, and going through a tough pregnancy, I had to slow down to look after my daughter," says the 35-year-old Sophia College alumna, who has a double major in psychology and history.

Frustrated with how much kitchen waste her family of 12 members and three helpers were generating daily, Phadtare decided to do something about it. "In my free time, I started watching videos on composting and started experimenting at home."

But, like most amateurs, her mission hit several roadblocks. "I didn't have access to good literature on composting, so I made hundreds of mistakes." The most common, she remembers, was not being able to balance wet and dry waste content.

Phadtare later found out that wet waste is very high on nitrogen and dry waste contains carbon. "Kitchen waste in Indian households is majorly wet." She rectified this by adding more coconut coir in wet waste.

But, very few homes regularly consume coconut. So later, that same year, she procured cow manure, neem cakes and coco peat as a substitute. "I sprinkled this mixture on the 700 gm wet waste I collected every day, and the results were amazing."

Her friends then asked her to share her expertise with others. She began by organising workshops last year. "Initially, I used earthen pots to create compost, but my daughter would easily push them over. I needed an alternative. I did my research and found that Sintex sells composting units in different sizes - 50 kg, 80 kg and 1,000 kg."

Phadtare started recommending these units to her friends, who would in turn raise queries with the company asking on ways to do composting. "Sintex found out that these queries were coming from people I knew. They approached me, and I held my first workshop to create awareness on composting in a Vasai-based housing society." So far, Phadtare has hosted multiple workshops across the city.

"We dispose of almost 70 per cent of compostable organic waste into the landfill on a daily basis. Organic matter that we toss in the trash contributes to climate change. Methods of waste disposal (incineration, dumping in the water bodies, landfills) have added to pollution, as they have led to a rise in greenhouse gases," she says.

Reach out to Phadtare on: 9920822162

What is composting?

Composting is a natural method of waste disposal and soil fertilisation. Compost is a result of natural breakdown of organic materials into fine particles by bacteria, fungi, insects, worms and microbes, which live in the soil. Once made, compost can be used to fertilise soil.

What all to compost?

. Greens: Tomatoes and capsicum seeds, mosambi, lime peels, nuts and seeds, cauliflowers stalks, egg shells, tea bags, used coffee and tea grounds, fresh nirmalya, garlic peels, stale mouldy bread, curd, buttermilk, etc.

. Browns: Brown paper bags, brown cartons, egg cartons, sugarcane bagasse, coconut husks and shell, elaichi shells, peanut shells, dried corn peels, dry leaves branches and twigs, saw dust, tissue papers and shredded paper.

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