Waste to compost: Community in Bishop Garden shows the way

In situ composting having been integrated into the workaday life of this apartment community in RA Puram, chennai, it generates 100-150 kilos of compost a month

Here is an apartment that has taken a leaf out of other communities but adapted to suit its reality. That is the inspiring composting journey of Grayshott Apartment at Bishop Garden Extension in Raja Annamalai Puram. For close to a year, a group of green enthusiasts in this 110-flat society were studying different composting systems followed by other communities that had set benchmarks in this area.

“We visited Jains Saagarika in MRC Nagar, Ashiana Apartments in Venus Colony, Ceebros Boulevard in Thoraipakkam, Thiruvengadam Street in Mandaveli and IIT-Madras to study different models to finally settle for cement tank composting, which was both sustainable and economical,” says Usha Kumar, an active member of GoGreen, the group started in 2017 that drives environment-friendly initiatives in the apartment.

While a small group of residents studied the pros and cons in vermicomposting, khamba composter and aerobic digester, they also started composting the waste generated from their kitchens in their homes.

“We started experimenting in our balconies. For instance, I bought a MyGreen bin to gain a first hand experience of composting,” says Usha.

In 2019, the community spent ₹60,000 to invest in a cement tank, partitioned into four layers to accommodate bio-degradable waste with cow dung as the microbe.

The kitchen waste is dumped in the compost pit with thin layers of cow dung and neem leaves on top. This process was repeated till the pit was filled up to three fourths of its capacity. After 45 days, they got compost, which was sieved to get fine “black gold”.

The composting journey was not without its initial hiccups.