BHUBANESWAR: For 33-year-old green crusader Neelima Mishra, the Covid-19 restrictions are an opportunity to nourish the soil through kitchen composting.
It’s also her best time for easing the lives of sanitation workers in the City who risk their lives, exposed to germs, dirt and the contagious virus.
And, she does her bit by influencing others on social media to take up the simple yet effective task of ‘upcycling’ the kitchen waste.
Staying back home to contain the spread of coronavirus, the Balianta resident has been spending her leisure time in creating instructional videos about kitchen composting and preparation of bioenzymes to be used as floor cleaners from water, citrus peels and jaggery.
An alumnus of Indian Institute of Forest Management Bhopal, Neelima urges people online to take up these activities to cut down City’s waste output.
“If each kitchen composting is practiced at each household in the City, we will be able to reduce 60 per cent of waste output. At present, the door-to-door garbage collection is being affected in the City due to the lockdown. Thus, such practices will benefit society at large,” said Neelima, who also works as an environmental consultant. Her videos have garnered more than 450 views and close to 100 likes on Facebook.
As she suggests, composting doesn’t require a huge set-up and can easily be practised in apartment’s lawns, balcony and terrace. For composting, she advises viewers use a bucket or an earthen vessel with holes for decomposing alternate layers of brown (dry leaves) and green (vegetable peels). “Don’t add non-vegetarian waste or citrus peels to the compost. Keep it covered and protected from rain water,” she said, adding the compost could be used for growing kitchen greens or indoor plants. In four days of lockdown, she has been able to produce half a bucket of compost from the biodegradable waste generated by her family of four adults.