Roli Poli Composting system. Wealth from Waste.

Then came a bit of stubb’d ground, once a wood,
Next a marsh, it would seem, and now mere earth
Desperate and done with; (so a fool finds mirth,
Makes a thing and then mars it, till his mood
Changes and off he goes!) within a rood—
Bog, clay, and rubble, sand and stark black dearth.
- Robert Browning

The stench rises likes a thief and stealing over the perimeters of the dhalaos, slowly permeates every corner of it's vicinity. It spreads it's hooks insidiously till with time it seems to have settled into the very skin of the earth there. Flies buzz with monotonous depravity. Every surface seemingly crawls with the detritus of humanity. The heat putrifies the garbage to a black and green mess,rains spread the yellow sludge with an impartial air and the cold freezes the putrid remains into a gnarled mess. A vision of the waste lands of India.

Delhi combines within itself the best and the worst of most systems.Its waste-management system is no better, of the 20 landfill sites ear-marked by the government, 15 landfill sites are already full and 2 are suspended. The last 3 remaining (Bhalasawa, Ghazipur and Okhla ) are already overflowing. Each of these landfills contaminates land, water, air and delays decomposition. Delhi's current waste disposal needs, equire land which it does not have. The good news however is that 50% of the waste generated in Delhi is organic and therefore compostable. nother 30% is recyclable. Composting is generally considered one of the best ways of extracting value from garbage, but in a country like India, it faces the problems of space required and maintainence of the pit.

The IIT Delhi campus also grapples with similar problems. The entire waste is collected together with no segregation and dumped near the micro-modal complex where secondary segregation is attempted. This system is environmentally hazardous, wasteful and not sustainable. This is where the Roli Poli makes an entry.The idea is to try and solve the terrible waste management system inside IIT Delhi through recycling and composting. Roli-Poli is a composting system manufactured by Greenbandhu. The Roli Poli helps in converting kitchen waste into very useful and valuable compost in a hygienic and clean manner, it makes source segregation automatic, increases the reuse and resale value of recyclables, de-stressing the already stressed out waste management system. And all this is done in a very user friendly and convenient manner.

The Roli Poli has been introduced here, under the aegis of NSS IIT Delhi, as a pilot project led by Professor M.R.Ravi (as the NSS coordinator). Three units of Roli Poli are to be installed. The first was installed in M street near the Kendriya Vidyalaya school. The first unit serves the needs of twelve households, who will be segregating at the household level and'feeding the pig' with the organic part of their waste. The second unit will come up in Captain B.N.Yadav's (Head Security Officer) apartment and the third unit will be starting in Kailash hostel.

There was a small demonstration by Saurav Bardhan, the enthusiastic head of GreenBandhu. He regularly checks up on the maintainence and progress of the Roli Poli, devoting much time and resources to the spread of the personal composting system. Often he has to dig into his own resources to keep the project going. On being asked about the unique looks of the Roli-Poli, his reply was that he wanted to turn composting into something fun and attractive. Something that would make people sit up and think that composting could be fun too. He admits that he wishes to target kids in particular as they will go on to become the primary participants in the struggle to make zero-waste manangement possible.


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Shruti

Courtesy - Board of Student Publications
http://www.infinityiitd.com