Rotting vegetable peels, milk cartons or waste food spilling out of your kitchen’s trash can or scrap iron and waste paper bundled up in plastic bags, garbage is something that should be done away as soon as possible.
“But do we dispose it off the right way?” asks 33-year-old Ribhu Vohra, co-founder of Waste Less, a non-profit organisation based in Auroville near Puducherry in Tamil Nadu. “The answer is a big no. In our hurry to clean our homes, we don’t bother to segregate waste, which in turn contributes to the ever-growing garbage in our city’s dump yard. India produces 500,000 tonnes of waste every day.”
Waste Less was founded by Vohra and his sister Chandrah Nusselein, 38, in 2010. The NGO is teaching sustainable waste management to children through a series of projects and games. Waste Less’ maiden project, Garbology 101, an educational toolkit for students from Class I to VI, reached out to over 12,416 students in 36 schools of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala.
Waste Less’ team of two to three volunteers and the founders is now working on Pick It Up, a fun card game in English and Tamil designed to teach children waste segregation. “We chose kids because they are eager to learn and can convince adults better than any awareness campaign,” says Vohra.
Nusselein, a Masters in Pedagogical Sciences from the University of Amsterdam says their endeavours began with the Litter Free Auroville Campaign in 2009. “During one of my projects in 2004 in tsunami affected villages in 40 coastal villages in Tamil Nadu, I saw garbage, especially plastic, as a major menace. What was needed was awareness, and we realised if we are able to make people in Auroville aware, we will be able to do it everywhere else,” says Nusselein.
When she asked Vohra—who had just left his job in Human Resources in the Netherlands—he chipped in. They started Waste Less with their savings. Nusselein says their biggest challenge now is getting dedicated and long-term volunteers to help.
“We tried to make it colourful and interactive with brainstorming sessions and out of it came ideas like a ‘trashion’ show, a fashion show with garbage. About 1,500 students from 15 schools of Auroville participated,” says Vohra.
Then came Garbology 101. Tailored as a curriculum, it comprises teaching kids the many facets of waste types, negative impacts and its sustainable management through 101 activities. Vohra says, “One of the activities is Trash Relay in which a child has to segregate waste and put it in the correct bin. In Spot the Batteries, kids are asked to identify battery-run gadgets by colouring them. They learn about the types of batteries in the next activity.”
Waste Less’ next project is Clean Labs and the team is also developing a game on plastics called Trash Concentration. “Plastic takes years to disintegrate. The game will enlighten children about the types of plastics, their levels of toxicity and prescribed usage,” says Nusselein.