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Uppinangady gram panchayat charts course to become zero-waste entity

MANGALURU: Uppinangady gram panchayat with help from Ramakrishna Mission has set out on a campaign to become a zero-waste panchayati raj body in Dakshina Kannada district.

While nitty-gritty of this campaign is final stages of conceptualisation, it entails use of black soldier fly worms to convert entire wet waste generated by the 1000-odd households in the panchayat in to compost at the panchayat shed and recycling of the dry waste.



Incidentally, the mission is running a pilot test bed on its premises at Mangaladevi to convert the wet waste generated at the ashram using black solider fly worms and is doing so with good results. Having successfully run a campaign of Swachh Mangaluru since the last five-years, the Mission is now looking to help individual gram panchayats manage their solid waste in an efficient manner and minimising financial costs in doing so.

Swami Ekagamyananda, convener of Swachh Mangaluru Abhiyan said for Uppinangady, a green plan of collecting waste using push carts rather than vehicles will be a first step going forward. “We plan to avail services of NSS volunteers for a honorarium to collect waste in boxes from households before 9am and ensure its segregation by noon. The wet waste will be converted in to compost while the dry waste will be sent for recycling,” he said.

Each pushcart will hold separate bins for dry and wet waste with volunteers collecting these bins from households and replacing them with cleaned bins collected from previous day. For households that are beyond the 1-1.5-km range of the panchayat, Mission will promote the idea of pot composting for wet waste and monthly collection of dry waste for recycling, he said, adding this will help panchayat manage its dumping yard that is overflowing.

With other gram panchayats that too have charted path towards becoming zero waste villages, he said their plans of going in for vermi-composting may not yield the same desired result compared to using black soldier fly worms that convert both vegetarian and non-vegetarian waste alike. Vermi-composting has certain issues with citric waste unlike the naturally growing black soldier fly worms that are impartial to any type of waste, he added.

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