Quietly making an impact Auroville’s solid waste outreach

The event was planned innocuously enough. It was inspired when Ribhu, our Aurovilian waste warrior, observed the sub-standard quality of the solid waste segregation system at the Unity Pavilion. Shivaya of the Unity Pavilion agreed and requested his help. She said that the Tamil workers generally handle the waste there and they needed training. So Ribhu of WasteLESS and Niranjan of EcoPro prepared an interactive presentation in Tamil on the importance of waste segregation. They sent out a few announcements to the community. 92 workers from different places in Auroville arrived.

The overwhelming interest in this session surprised everyone, including its organizers. “I thought 20-30 people would show up,” said Niranjan. Clearly there is a high demand for this information, proven not just in the turn out, but also in the receptivity of the audience. What began as an Auroville-based training for workers quickly became a discussion on solid waste management in general. “All of them understood the importance of segregation but found the systems operating outside of Auroville difficult,” said Ribhu. “Some ladies from Lawspet complained about how they no longer have space to compost. Others were happy that the system in Auroville works; it needs continuous effort and attention, but recycling is happening and the place is clean. Most of the ladies were active in the discussion and all understood that action has to start at the individual level, in the home with segregation.”

How do Ribhu and Niranjan get people to talk about trash? “We take a big picture approach and examine how waste impacts the environment,” says Ribhu. An image of the Earth from space immediately pulls the audience out of their individual lives to remind them that we live together on one planet. The presentation then explains waste issues in terms of finite resources: limited freshwater resources, the fragility of our atmosphere, and the increasingly polluted landscapes that surround us. It focuses on how pollution impacts our lives directly and how proper segregation helps to promote recycling, ultimately to reduce pressure on our resources.

The presentation ends with photographs of the waste barrels at Unity Pavilion: “We customize our waste presentations to each place we go,” Ribhu says. Ribhu and Niranjan discuss what they found in each bin, and talk about direct steps for improvement. After an hour and a half presentation, the crowd disperses with new knowledge. Ribhu reflected that it was a good first session “but now is the difficult part of following up and seeing how this can translate into better waste management at each of the units/organizations and then finally in their homes.” Inspired by their first presentation of this kind, Ribhu would like to see these presentations continue from July.

Outreach efforts

This collaborative effort between WasteLESS and EcoPro wasn’t the first or the only solid waste outreach effort in Auroville. In the past, there have been a variety of outreach efforts to people from the surrounding villages [see box next page]. One recent waste outreach project, begun in 2009 and ended in May 2012, was EcoPro’s initiative in Periyamudaliyar-chavadi, which approached waste management in terms of systematic change, for example, trying to understand and overcome challenges in the government-run solid waste management system. They conducted waste audits in the village and examined specific challenges that the village faces in proper solid waste management, uncovering a system filled with perverse incentives for government workers not to do their jobs. While the challenge of systematic change was frustrating, there were several valuable lessons learned. What they observed was that direct incentives work best: if householders can recognize the monetary value of their waste items, and directly reap the rewards by selling to scrap dealers, they will be encouraged to segregate their waste.

Today ongoing outreach efforts in solid waste management continue. They range from direct action, such as the organization of a litter clean up in Kuilapalayam in May, hosted by the Kuilapalayam Cultural Center team, consisting of Selvaraj, Hari and Suryagandhi, to providing a direct financial incentive to waste, to working directly with a municipality on its solid waste management system. Many efforts are focused on education and advocacy, so their impact is more challenging to document. Below are a few highlights of ongoing waste outreach efforts based in Auroville and extending outward to the bioregion.

AuroScrap

The concept is simple: Auroscrap is a recyclables dealership that purchases less common, bulky waste items, such as table fans, old piping, or fridges. They also take glass or paper in quantity. Auroscrap determines the value of it and then pays for it at competitive rates.

Aurovilians frequently give their ammas or workers valuable waste items such as newspaper or glass jars to sell in the village, but this is an opportunity for Auroville to reap the economic benefits from recycled waste. Auroscrap is managed by Suryan and he hopes that the workers of Aurovilians will soon recognize that they can get a better rate for their waste by coming to him rather than selling it in the village. He estimates that Auroville loses up to 1-2 lakh rupees monthly on recyclable waste being sold out of Auroville. His outreach method is to provide a direct financial incentive for people to recycle their waste.

Eco-Service Community Outreach

Another outreach method is advocacy. In late 2009, Eco-Service created an outreach branch that was boosted by a grant from Auroville’s Project Coordination Group (PCG) in May 2012 (which also helps to fund Seeds of Change, see below). Since then, it has connected with over 60 communities and households within Auroville. Eco-Service’s Community Outreach is organized and conducted by the Eco Service team, but is largely the responsibility of R. Rajamanikam. Currently pursuing his PhD at Pondicherry University on waste management in the Pondicherry region, Rajamani visits new communities to help them set up a waste segregation area and assists in improving the waste systems of established communities. He also trains workers, most often ammas, who handle the community’s waste.

Rajamani sees lack of segregation as a lack of commitment and lack of consciousness. He observes two main challenges that often face Auroville communities; firstly, that community members are unable to organize themselves, and secondly, that the ammas handling the waste don’t understand the importance of segregation.

Rajamani conducts an interactive session for workers that provides them with an opportunity to share their experiences. “If I tell them I’m a teacher, they don’t listen,” he says. Instead, in colloquial Tamil, he shares his personal background and commitment to his work, and then asks about their work and their waste management systems in the villages. “Oftentimes, ammas will think Aurovilians are crazy,” he says. “They ask me why Aurovilians spend so much money on barrels just to put waste in them. They say that if they had a barrel for their home, they would fill it with fresh water.” Rajamani then goes on to explain the connections between mixed waste and vector-borne diseases, and other risks associated with improper waste management.

Rajamani observes that the workers value the information more when they are participating and when it’s directly relevant to their work and lives. “The more they find the answers themselves,” he says, “the more they own it and take leadership”. He is repeatedly impressed by the ammas he encounters. “If you give them proper information, they want to change. The beauty of working in Auroville is that people would like to change, they just need information and training. I think if you chose 10 ammas who excelled in segregation and gave them an incentive or reward, this would provide positive reinforcement to them”.

WasteLESS

Education is at the heart of the work of WasteLESS, a non-profit social enterprise working to raise awareness about waste issues. Its work involves conducting waste audits and creating educational materials for school children, such as the comprehensive “Garbology 101” curriculum. [More about WasteLESS in the Oct 2012 issue of AV Today.] Its latest waste outreach material was launched on Earth Day, April 22, at a gathering at the Unity Pavilion. The card game ‘Pick It Up’, aims to spread awareness on waste segregation in a fun and interactive way. It focuses on the informal sector of India’s waste system (e.g. scrap dealers and waste pickers). ‘Pick It Up’ teaches students from 7 years and older how to segregate and recycle their waste through the informal sector and highlights common waste items which have high value. Printed in two versions (Tamil/English and Hindi/English) on recyclable cards, the card game is available from WasteLESS. (Learn more at: www.iwasteless.org)

Seeds of Change

Another education-based initiative is Seeds of Change, a joint initiative between Soma Waste, a group working on waste issues in Auroville, and PondyCAN, an NGO in Pondicherry. The work is being coordinated by Auralice, who is also working for Eco Service Community Outreach. This project goes into Pondicherry and Tamil Nadu schools with the goal, explains Auralice, “of imparting environmental awareness and civic consciousness through participatory activities such as classroom and school-based audits, field trips and seminars”. Since its inception in 2008, the project has worked with over 3000 students from grades 1-9 in 30 schools.

The project consists of two parts. The first is the Green Schools curriculum developed by the Centre for Science and Environment, based in Delhi, which helps students conduct a “green audit” of their school in six categories: land, air, water, energy, waste and heritage. “It’s a beautiful tool,” says Rajamani, “because through it each one can clearly understand his/her footprint on nature.” It is not all plain sailing. Rajamani has visited private school children who refuse to conduct a waste audit, and government schools that fear that if the audit results will be published, it will ruin Pondicherry’s national reputation as a clean city with hygienic schools. But overall, Auralice notes behavioral change in students, such as their attention to turning off light switches and fixing leaking taps. At one school, the students did a waste audit and recognized the massive amount of food waste. So they made a collective effort to take less food.

The other aspect of the Seeds of Change project consists of Rajamani’s personal passion: presenting the importance of wetlands. Though wetland ecosystems play a key role in the natural filtration of polluted water, the main focus of the curriculum is on biodiversity and threats to wetlands of the region: encroachment, pollution, over-harvesting and poaching.

Indo-French Solid Waste Management: Karaikal

One outreach effort works directly with a local municipality. EcoPro has been working since January 2013 to raise awareness and to help set up proper solid waste management systems in the city of Karaikal, a municipality of the Karaikal District in the Union Territory of Puducherry, 150 kilometres south of Auroville. In a joint effort between the French Government, EcoPro, and officials in Karaikal, two wards, Valatheru and Kadarsulthan, of 13,000 people and 1300 households were designated for the programme. When the project started, waste collection was not frequent enough and not reliable in regularity and coverage. EcoPro was tasked to improve the situation.

Ribhu and Niranjan began by visiting the wards and simply walking through the streets and observing the waste there. “After we had done this for a few days, people would approach us and ask us what we were doing,” Niranjan said. It was then that they would launch into their “roadshow,” which included a screening of the waste-awareness film “Maatram” and a brief interactive session on the importance of waste management. Presentations were purposely not technical. Instead, they centered on the experience of the people and the threats at hand. “We ask the audience why they are working, and they reply, ‘for the future of our children’. We then reply, ‘Pollution impacts your children. For your future, you need to give your kids good air, good water.’”

Their impact has been significant and tangible. In collaboration with the municipality, EcoPro helped to implement a door-to-door waste collection system for the two wards; now 60% of households have door-to-door collection. They have set up waste management systems in three of the eight schools there. They also worked with college students to run a massive 7-day campaign for solid waste awareness, which included a rally, an upcycling exhibition of materials made from waste, and a kolam competition on a site that had previously been used for dumping. EcoPro also assisted in setting up a composting system for biodegradable waste.

At the heart of the waste problem, says Niranjan, are people. “Once you have good people to take up the waste challenge, it will happen.” The municipality and their French partner, Cotes D’Armor, have been sufficiently impressed to ask for an extension of the programme to four more wards in the current year.

Auroville’s current waste outreach efforts are decentralized and all are funding-contingent. Common themes of education and effective communication do emerge, and they revolve around sharing experiences and recognizing finite resources. Each initiative is a small, unique step toward a healthier bioregion for us all.