Namaste Friends. Welcome back to MyGreenSpace. I know my title is confusing this time because my first blog was about how I was dying to compost my waste, my failure and success at it. But as I gradually got into a waste-less life thanks to my mentor Husband Abhay Mishra and Saritha Sudhakaran, I realized that composting food waste is actually the last option. What??? Last Option? What did that mean? is what I thought. Well, what it meant was that we must limit the food waste creation in our household so that we can reduce the dump in our compost bin. Many of us give up composting because we cannot accommodate the food waste created on a daily basis. Well, this is how we can. Here’s a check list of the 5 ways in which you can manage the same.

1. Serve only as much as you can eat on your plate. Chuck those etiquettes of leaving food on the plate. At home and out of home. Believe me a clean plate leads to a happy bin.

2. Cook only as much as you can finish. Trust me you will end up eating fresh food every time.

3. Check if you can give away any excess food to the poor or needy. You will be happy when you do it. Your body will release dopamine.

4. Give some away to animals who feed on it. Dogs, Cats, Cattle, Birds you can choose what best suits you, your family and yes of course your residential society.

5. If you are scared of animals like me, then the peels of fruits and veggies can be used to make amazing Chips, chutneys, cleaners and many more. Take the help of Youtube.

6. Last option. Compost what is left.

My food waste goes through this checklist each and everyday before entering the compost bin. The first three are completely doable and most of us have househelp who are more than happy to take the excess food. If my husband is busy then giving away to animals is a challenge for me but I have seen him really go in search of cattle to give away leftover peels and food cause his drive is far more intense then mine. I plead guilty cause I don’t regularly make chutneys or jams out of the peels but yes I do make natural cleaners for my home. In this way a lot of my food waste is managed and controlled.

This step of consciously generating food waste, automatically put me on to my next green step. Which I will be sharing with you all in my next post. Till then watch out for MyGreenSpace. See you soon.

It has been more than 3 years that I have been composting my kitchen waste. I never thought composting would be so easy, so simple, so natural. In the colony I stay, we didn’t have a waste collection system. Everyday the kitchen waste and the dry waste was together dumped in a pit in the corner of the colony compound. It was a sorry state to see . I didn’t know much about waste segregation and at that time but I definitely knew that dry and wet had to be given separately or else it wasn’t of any use. So with that thought that I don’t want to mix up my waste I randomly started looking at videos to compost my wet waste so that I wouldn’t have the guilt of dumping mixed waste. I didn’t even know what was the guilt about…as in why should I not mix up waste? You can imagine my level of ignorance. But my composting journey had begun and it had some surprises. Firstly I looked at all the videos and did nothing. Wow what a drive I had….after some few days I paid a visit to a family friend and got inspired by her composting technique and started to copy that. This time I did something. But I failed miserably. I couldn’t manage all the kitchen waste created and ended up with a smelly stinky compost bin. I started dumping mixed waste again. In a few months I bought compost bins online with their sure shot way and process of composting mentioned in the manual. I started my journey again but yet again I ended up with a stinky smelly bin and continued dumping mixed waste again. I spoke to some friends and known people and they told me stuff like its not so easy to compost, you need to have a garden, in the videos they show as if its so easy and many such other opinions were thrown at me to make me feel good.

Somehow I didn’t want to take the defeat but I didn’t know how to win too. I carried on just like that for some more time just feeling sorry for myself that I tried to do something good and I couldn’t. One fine day while having coffee with my husband and his friend Abhinav I found the one quote that keeps me motivated even today. And that is “ Not a single grain of rice is discarded”. Abhinav gave me this quote. He had been composting for many years and when I told him that I haven’t been successful at composting he offered to help me. The Eureka moment was just on its way this time but I was unaware. He told me to restart. I did. As one week passed the bin got smelly again. I lost hope. He called to check how was it going. I told him it failed again. He came home checked my bin did some corrections and gave me some suggestions. I tried to save my bin again. And this time I felt like yes I am moving from stage one to stage two. No, but the Eureka moment had not yet come. I continued the way he told me for two months. Then one fine day he told me to just pull out some soil like stuff from the bottom of my compost bin and smell it. That was my Eureka moment. I got it. I made it. It was my first compost and it smelt earthly. I call this moment as my Greenism Moment till date cause it was this moment that paved the way for me towards sustainable living. I had successfully composted. I had cracked the method and I was happy not to discard any of my wet waste. I was just plain happy with what I had done. I was totally unaware about the benefit of home composting and what was in store for me in the future. I had embarked on my trip of living Green and spreading Greenism.

I had broken the myth in my mind that one cant compost in a flat. After all I had successfully composted in one. I read up on what are the benefits of composting. The once me who had nothing to do with nature was now walking the green path. You know what? The feeling that I have done something great for the environment was the drive in me. I still thought shallow at that time as though I have done a great favour to nature by composting. Little did I know that soon I would be indebted to nature so much that I would owe my existence to it. But I would say that any start towards a green step is a good start because it eventually puts you on the right path. I started reading, watching and listening to stuff that people have done in the environmental sphere, joined a WhatsApp group on composting where I could share my experience and help the new bees and also get to know how the masters in the field are doing it. I started gelling with like minded people. Composting helps reduce the space occupied on the landfill, reduces the burden on waste collectors and gives you a happy and a healthy garden. I could not believe that I had in some way contributed to all of this. Seriously???? Since I was creating so much compost I had no option but to begin gardening. In my flat with three balconies I planted some 50 odd pots so that I could use the compost and on several occasions I was generous enough to drop the compost on the trees and plants in the locality. I attended a wasteless project which helped me transit to sustainable living. It was amazing to know that in addition to composting there are so many different ways in which one can live a green life. My journey had thus begun and it had caught pace too. I moved from composting to waste reduction and in what a way. I am just thankful that a simple step of home composting opened up a whole world of green possibilities. If I go back and think I could take this simple step only because the waste in my area wasnt being picked up. Sometimes things fall apart so that they can fall in place. Today being the World Environment Day I would like to send a message to all the people that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a small step. So figure out your first small step. To know what was my second step keep watching MyGreenSpace.....see you soon...