As part of the International Composting Week, the Solid Waste Management Team of Ajmera Green Acres apartment at Bannerghatta Road conducted an educational and fun event for kids on 11-May – to take them through the ‘story of our waste!’

The residents of Ajmera Green Acres have been quite pro-active in adopting ‘green’ practices towards managing in-house waste. Most of the kitchen waste is composted in-house through 3 different composting units.

The children of all ages (and parents) enthusiastically assembled promptly at the start of the event. They were shown a demo of how the housekeeping staff actually handles the kitchen waste after collecting from the homes. Starting with spreading out a large sheet, they spread some cocopeat on it to absorb excess moisture, and then dumped the kitchen waste from one of the large collection drums. They used forks to check for any paper/plastic/large vegetable and fruit pieces/coconut shells etc and removed those as those would not be composted effectively. They then added in some compost microbes powder followed by some more cocopeat, mixing it all thoroughly before adding to the composting unit. The children were able to relate all of this to what they had studied at school and had many questions as well. Participants also took home 1 kg of ‘black gold’ – i.e. compost (in reusable bags that they’d brought)! They also got to see the hard and tough work that our housekeeping staff do to help keep our premises clean and green, making them respect them more.

We hope that such events instil a participative spirit in children, and they actively engage in the segregation process at their homes as well.