“I started my career as a Chemical Engineer in the Oil and Gas Industry. Over the years, sometimes I feel like while we talk about the pollution Oil and Gas industry causes, reality is all effluents from the industry are much more closely monitored as against waste disposed at residential areas in India. Households are one of the major contributors of the garbage of different kinds in cities. However, there is no adherence to even the basics of segregation of the waste coming from residential areas” says Sujatha Krishnamurthy, one of the co-founders at Ekobarn.
This was one of the major motivators to form Ekobarn, an organization that offers hassle-free composting experience to deal with residential waste at source for customers. It is co-founded by Sujatha Krishnamurthy, Vaidehi Naik- Nandola and Lalit Vashista.
“Each of us has a different journey in our lives. At one point of time, destiny made our paths coincide to start a business for a better tomorrow. That’s how Ekobarn was started. We want to create simple solutions like our home composter the EkoBin which can process 30 kgs of waste and easily fit in a balcony space. Low maintenance, lower recurring cost and compost culture are the other added features of Ekobin”.
Why regulations or monitoring systems are needed for household waste management?
The answer for this question can be answered by the 2020-21 annual report of The Central Pollution Control Board of India. The report had two serious concerns: the increasing number of dumpsites and unaccounted solid waste generation is at more than 31.7%.
One way to address the issue is through composting in households itself. Composting at home has several benefits. Reducing dependency on dumpsites for waste disposal is one of them. It is said that composting can reduce household waste generation by 30 percent.
“However, certain misconceptions pull people back from household composting. We heard from customers saying that composting at home is challenging without even trying it. It is smelly, attracts pests, time consuming and laborious in nature – these are some of the most common things people talk about when we suggest composting. Reality is none of these are true unless composting is done improperly.“ The founders of Ekobarn said.
The team plans to launch a new product line. These include manual apartment composter EkoWizzard, and large automated bulk composters EkoCyclers. In addition to that they are planning to launch a smaller compost bin. This bin is best suited for cities like Mumbai which sometimes don’t even have balconies.
The team ensures that the bins can convert kitchen waste to compost within eight weeks. Besides, it takes less than 2 minutes in a day to compost using their composter. However, they cautioned about certain don’ts while using the composter. Team Ekobarn suggests not to compost meat products and dairy products. The main reasons are: firstly, it takes a long time to compost. Furthermore, it attracts rats and pests. The salt and oil added in the food adversely affects the quality of the compost.
Government subsidies for eco-friendly products and lowering the GST brackets for composters are some of the reforms that founders wish to promote eco-friendly product manufacturing in India.
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Very nice idea. Need of the hour. Try to make it so simple and easily adjustable in the small houses so that most people adopt it without hesitation.