Meet the zero waster who has bin there, done that http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com/index.aspx?EID=31808&dt=20170507#
Himanshi Dhawan As we go from a less-waste society -in our grandparents' time -to a resource-hungry one, a few Indians are trashing their old lifestyles. Sunday Times visits a home in Delhi to get a peek into a no-rubbish life Buy, buy, says the sign in the shop window; Why, why, says the junk in the yard,“ Paul McCartney's Junk song is all about us and our incessant urge to buy every sparkly , shiny new dream that brands sell us and then trash it because once you have something, admit it, it doesn't look as shiny as before. After years of the corporate rat-race and non-stop partying, Deepa, who goes by just one name, decided to stop buying into the myth. For the last four years now, this 36-year-old south Delhi resident has slowly cut down the excess in her life to lead a zero-waste lifestyle.At a time when we are all about what we wear, the phone we own, the car we drive, she has worked to not just reduce and recyle, but to live by the mantra: Use what you have, borrow, swap, thrift, make and, if nothing else works, only then buy . This means she eats vegan, grows a lot of her food in her own kitchen garden and uses the bus or metro to get to her destination instead of hopping into a car or cab. She has not bought a bottle of mineral water in the last 10 years, always leaves homes with cloth bags, and even carries her cutlery to restaurants when she goes out to eat. She does have to brave some disdainful looks from restaurant staff but that's par for the course. Though Deepa admits that she has lost some “friends'' who are unable to understand her obsession, she tries not to preach to the non-believers. “I believe in relationship over ideology.My best friend is vice-president in a major junk food chain but our friendship is above this,'' she says. A sharp wake-up call came in 2013 when Deepa attended a selfdevelopment workshop. “I was trying to get over a relationship at the time and was in an unhappy place in life. This workshop made me take a new look at my relationship with myself, with nature, animals and with others,'' she recalls. Earlier head of ticketing in the now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines, she now works as a “sustainable lifestyle coach'' to help other people ease into a life of 5Rs --Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and Rot''. She also describes herself as a “holistic cleaning agent'' who helps people declutter their homes. Among the social media forums that she has initiated are Dariya Dil Dukaan, a pan-India gifting forum with over 4,700 members. “It is not a forum for buying or barter. People can gift an object they are not using, or even a skill or knowledge that may be use ful to someone else,'' she says, pointing to a laptop and headphones she got from the forum. Avoiding waste in a city can be tough but Deepa goes to greath lengths to fulfil her commitment to a green lifestyle.No fancy outfits -clothes are from a nearby thrift shop for less than Rs 100 -cosmetics are home-made or organic. Even sanitary napkins have been replaced by a menstrual cup. Even with all these steps, plastic still does creep into the household.“We recycle plastic bags used for dal or flour but all the rest of the waste is composted at home and used in the kitchen garden,'' she says. Her home-composting kit, provided by Daily Dump -an NGO that advises people on composting and reducing waste -is a “khamba'' that holds kitchen wet waste. A mix of coco peat and dry leaves helps compost the garbage within a month and keeps the smell to a minimum. Deepa's lifestyle may not have gone mainstream in India but the idea is fast catching on with millennials in the West. There are several popular blo gs too which give advice on how to go wrapperfree and give tips on composting. Most point to Bea Johnson as the mother of the movement.Johnson, a Frenchwoman who lives in California, has been living trash-free with her husband and two children since 2008 and has published a book on the subject in 2013.When she started, zero waste was a term only used by the government and by companies that wanted to differentiate themselves from organizations they saw as less environmentally friendly. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Edward Humes in his book Garbology: Our Dirty Love Affair with Trash talks about the America's “largest export, most prodigious product and greatest legacy--its trash'' He says: “Americans make more trash than anyone else on the planet.. Each of our bodies may occupy only one cemetery plot when we're done with this world, but a single person's 102-ton trash legacy will require the equivalent of 1,100 graves. Much of that refuse will outlast any grave marker, pharaoh's pyramid or modern skyscraper.“ The waste footprint of the urban Indian is growing too. According to a World Bank 2015 report, India produces 109,589 tonnes of municipal solid waste a day which is projected to triple to 376,639 tonnes a day by 2025. But there are also people like Deepa who are becoming conscious of the impact their lifestyle is having on the environment. Samidha Bansal, a learning and development consultant who volunteers for Daily Dump, says that there has been a significant increase in those living green lifestyles. “Four years ago when I started as a volunteer for Daily Dump there would be maybe a query a month from people who would be interested in home composting. Now I am selling home composting units to 10-15 people every month,'' she said. Considering India's overflowing landfills, every little bit counts. -- With best wishes S Chander -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Thatha_Patty" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
