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With waste piling up, this Navelim man offers hope

POINGUINIM: While the government and waste management agencies grapple with Goa’s burgeoning garbage problem, Eleuterio Anastasio Carneiro is quietly creating a revolution of sorts. An art teacher by profession and waste manager by passion, the Navelim resident is the brains behind a composter that is being used at around 500 locations across the state to treat wet waste.




The sight of decomposing mixed garbage along roadsides in 2009 repulsed Carneiro so much that he spent a decade researching ways and means to stem the rot. He eventually came up with the black soldier fly larvae (BSFL) composter, which uses microbial fermentation and methanotrophic bacteria to break down wet waste without releasing any foul odour. Carneiro went on to share this technology with Navelim panchayat, expecting no remuneration in return.

The composter, which is presently distributed through the panchayat, has become a big hit in the village and has changed the way residents treat their waste. It has also been the topic of discussion at national-level workshops held in collaboration with the panchayat and ICAR-CCARI, Ela.

Dogged in his fight against littering, the 42-year-old even patrols the village at night in a vehicle fitted with CCTV cameras to dissuade people from dumping garbage in the open.

Carneiro’s tryst with waste management began during his posting at a school in Valpoi , Sattari , in 2006, when he and his family would set an example by sweeping the village’s roads. He eventually mentored over 200 volunteers to begin the NGO, Gandhiji’s Dream, which today undertakes cleanliness drives in the taluka every Sunday.

Upon his transfer to a school in Galgibaga, Carneiro began using his car to pick up litter that he’d spot on his way to and from the institution. This caught the eye of then Canacona zilla parishad member Daya Pagi, who requested the Goa Industrial Development Corporation to rid the entire highway of garbage.

“My principle is simple,” Carneiro says. “If I die tomorrow, the initiatives I have taken up will die with me. But if I share what I’ve begun, there will be hundreds of Carneiros doing my job.”

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