Environment

Suresh Kumar took on a Project on Waste Management, named ‘Clean Bangalore’, as part of his participation in SELP. The intention of the project is to segregate the waste into WET & DRY. WET wastebeing used as manure & DRY waste being taken to sorting station & dispose it appropriately. His project is extending to e-waste & also ‘No Plastic Use’.

This newsletter of the Royal Palm describing the work of Suresh Kumar and Clean Bangalore give a sense of the kind of dedication and hard work it takes to have a Self Expression and Leadership program project flourish in a community.

Our January volunteer meeting was held on Jan.10^th 2009. Thanks to all the members who came for the meeting. The following are the members who attended the meeting: Suresh Kumar, Chidananda, Ramachandra and Chethan.

The meeting began with a brief description of Saahas activities.

Suresh Kumar, who is attending the meeting for the second time, gave us an update of the pilot waste management that he has instituted in his apartment complex: Royal Palms, HAL. Ten families have been inducted into the waste management programme. They segregate their waste as dry and wet. The organic waste is then composted. The dry waste which comprises recyclable material is stored and further sorted in a sorting station set up in the basement. Here is how he did it (extracted from the Royal Palms newsletter). Great job!

Pilot at RP

Beginning 8 Dec 2008, 10 families at RP volunteered to be part of this pilot project of segregating their waste into wet and dry. For easy of managing the pilot, these 10 families were selected from one single wing; A-wing. These flats are 004, 005, M04, 104, 105, 204, 206, 303, 304 and 306.

These houses collect dry waste in the same mode as done earlier with a minor difference. Instead of using the regular black garbage bags or using one of the white plastic bags we get from supermarkets, they use a blue bag provided to them. This colour coding is done to segregate their sorted waste from other unsorted waste from their neighbours. They collect their wet waste in a steel bucket with lid, provided to them. In this bucket, they collect their daily kitchen waste mostly collected as part of the cooking in the morning. They keep the wet and dry waste outside by 10 am. The housekeeping assistants has been trained for this new process. They collect the wet waste buckets and transfer them to the composting units. In RP, these are kept behind the badminton court and resemble large earthen pots.

Once the staff empties the bucket, they wash it and return it back to the respective house. Flat number is marked on the bucket for identification. The RP gardener has been trained to do the required maintenance of adding dry leaves, mixing them, adding germ culture to accelerate the composting process, etc.

The dry waste, collected in blue bags is taken to the ‘Dry Waste Sorting Station’. This is located far side of the basement. Waste is sorted into plastic, paper, cardboard, glass,metal, TetraPak and eWaste. A nearby scrap dealer comes twice a week to pick up this sorted waste and gives us the appropriate commercial value for the scrap. TetraPack and e-Waste is sent to different collection agency.

From here to where…

After doing this pilot for over a month, it is time to roll out to larger set of houses especially in B and C wings.

Chidananda and Ramachandra work together and have offered to help out with revising and updating our website. Chidananda has also offered to have an e-waste collection receptacle in his office building. Thanks and we’ll be looking forward to your help.

Chethan, who has worked/volunteered with us for the last six months, has offered to identify some scrap dealers, especially those in the RT Nagar/Hebbal area. Thank you for your help.

Thanks for all your help. Looking forward to meeting more of you next month. .

This December marks the first month of the new Madison Lights Out (MLO) energy conservation and awareness campaign, which asks residents of Madison Wisconsin to cut back on their energy consumption. The campaign, started by Jennifer Sather in her Landmark Education SELP program, was the subject of an article in the Madison Times. Here is how Sather’s Light’s Out website describes the project.

MLO is a citywide energy conservation and awareness campaign, which will run every December and July. The sole purpose is to encourage behavior change in Madison residents resulting in turning OFF all non-essential lighting/energy products. Imagine how contagious this could be, if we as a community are successful in achieving measurable results.

Today, we have a choice in how we utilize energy. If we act now, we may be able to keep that choice. Everyone and every switch can help. You can. You count.

We are asking you, the community members of Madison to
participate in the MLO awareness campaign by:

1. Being an example! Turn off non-essential lighting/energy products
2. Download, print, and hang a poster
3. Planting a yard sign in December (and July)
4. Be a yard-sign distribution center in your neighborhood
5. Passing the word and emailing this announcement to your friends

The Madison Lights Out project is also holding a mid-December, and has been featured on other websites, such as the Madison Peak Oil Group.

Ian Robins lives in the historic port town of Bridport in Southwestern England. When he took Landmark Education’s Self-Expression and Leadership Programme, he thought of and was inspired by the Japanese town of Kamikatsu, where each citizen is responsible for disposing of their own rubbish.

Robins invited the town council and community leaders of Bridport, Dorset UK to a debate at the town hall on this concept of zero waste, out of his intention to make a difference and create a waste free town. At the meeting, three expert speakers from around the country contributed to an informed and provocative discussion, and a public petition was launched with the intention to:

“…propose that Bridport becomes a beacon town for recycling, specifically adopting a zero waste policy within five years.”

The evening inspired many people to take action in regards to recycling and an action group was formed to tackle the unnecessary packaging of food.

Community Green, the website clearing house for New Jersey environmentalists and their projects around the state created by Ariane Delafosse in her Self-Expression and Leadership program last year, has continued to thrive and flourish, providing access and promotion to dozens of worthy projects and events.

Community green is an all-volunteer, 5013c non-profit that has a full team of directors, many of whom have brought environmental projects and ideas they are working with to within Community Green. Delafosse’s mission is to connect people to global and local environmental issues and opportunities for action right in their own back yards.

This year Community Green has already and supported 40 events and projects which have already taken place across New Jersey, and is working on many more, including farm events, a new six-part environmental course from the Northwest Earth Institute, a school tour focusing on sustainability in development and landscape design (coming up on October 25), and many more–Visit Community Green’s event page to see all the opportunities.