Over 350 join Rodas ecotel green team segregate and vermicompost festival waste at powai lake.

By Elsie Gabriel: Even as the city ends it’s celebrations of the Ganeshotsav with gaiety,at 7am over 350 Young Environmentalists, Powai  Rodas Green team and Advanced Locality Manamgement of Meluha the Fern ecotel along with Chandraban College in Powai and KV IIT Powai students came forward to ensure the festival ended in an environment-friendly manner. For this, they worked at the main ghats in Powai surrounding the Powai lake, so that nirmalya or the festive wastes like Prasad and flowers did not pollute the water body

“First we segregated the festive waste at the site itself,” Informs Daniel Chatterton of Rodas green team Powai, “Separated the biodegradable from the non bio-degradable.It is a  fact that non biodegradable materials such as plastic or thermocole accompany the offerrings, and makes it necessary to appropriately manage the ‘nirmalya’ collected.We collected 40 bags of nirmalya (the garlands flowers and Prasad wastes), which otherwise flows into the lake during visarjan. Nearly all our employees participated in various programmes to prevent pollution in water bodies and later we vermicomposted them in our special garden vermicomposting pits made for the festival.”

In its 12^th  year of implementation, the nirmalya collection and recycling project is planned and implemented by Rodas green team at Powai making it a successful community project year after year. Here students from schools and colleges are given hands-on training in composting them. The Meluha ecotel ALMs of Powai also hopes to generate more than 100 Kgs of  manure from the collected nirmalya.

Calling out for united efforts on part of citizens and the BMC is Elsie Gabriel founder Young Environmentalists, “We need the youth to get a first hand experience of working on segregation and waste managment. The lake ghat is not easy to clean as it is cemented and not a sandy beach. One of the biggest outputs of the Ganesh Chaturthi festival is the tonnes of ‘nirmalya’, the offerrings collected during the immersion. All 300 students will make an environment project report on the topic of Segragation at source for post festive waste and vermicomposting items like flower garlands, fruits, coconuts, spices, honey and camphor. While most of the offerings themselves are made of natural items, they come wrapped in plastic bags, plastic boxes or glass bottles. We need all devotees to learn about segregation before immersion.Next year we will have an artificial tank at Powai for immersion.”