Mumbai: JVPD resident Ragini Jain knows the importance of thinking global and acting local.
She started a unique initiative, Gitanjali Envirotech, an open space converted into a waste-management site, eight years back in Vile Parle. Waste, collected by volunteers of her organisation, is converted into manure in biobins that have a unique design to recycle biodegradable waste material into eco-friendly organic compost.
She has roped in ragpickers from nearby areas to collect the garbage and has trained them to make the compost. “We don’t use worms,’’ she says, adding that manure made from the organic liquid smells like pure earth and is rich in nutrients.
The ragpickers, who now work with Geetanjali Envirotech full-time, say that there is no health hazard caused by the garbage. “Waste can be very resourceful,’’ says Jain.
The manure, which can even be created in 25 days, is sold at a nominal price of Rs 4 per kg. Jain believes that it is extremely important for eco-friendly initiatives to be self sustainable in the city.
“This is now a full-time vocation for me,’’ she says, adding that a model project wastemanagement was started at house-to-house level in the Juhu-Vile Parle Development Scheme in Vile Parle but the bio-bins wastemanagement system was implemented in hundreds of other societies across K-West ward.
Jain says she started the organisation because there was a need to convert waste into something productive.
The organisation now also carries out similar activities in Rajasthan, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Uttaranchal besides other places in Maharashtra.
Email this Page