CMC vellore- an unique project

Amidst so many jokes like the fight within a family- between thatha and grand nephew, blessing of another new channel (hey, what else do u think they can contribute?) to the tamil speaking good world, a rowdy sheeter’s wife made a central minister (ofcourse w/o portfolio), bangla and India playing cric on level plane, selection of coach drama, great international sop operas of perverted mushy and bushy, there seems to be no end to all this drama..
There are guys who are unmindful of all these distractions and doing some phenomenal works for the society. One such gentleman is Srinivasan of vellore who has done so much to revive greenery in vellore- esp on the hills and to recycle and handle solid wastes. In an unique tie up with CMC, vellore he has devised an excellent and innovative way to handle all the wastes generated within the 5 campuses of CMC and is converting them to a zero waste community, what more as money!
From all the 5 campuses of CMC (incl the college hospital, docs quarters, hostels and the separate eye hospi) the waste is separated at source by collecting the organic and inorganic wastes separately. (The human parts and other biomedical wastes and instrument wastes are handles separately). Some 8000 people generate about 8 tonnes of garbage each day. The organic wastes are put to aerobic or wormi waste treatment and what one gets after a month is organic wormi compost fertilizer which is in good demand these days. The inorganic- which will not decompose is segregated (manually) in to some 180 items (for eg. Diff grades of plastic, pet, paper, cardboard, pin, alu, glass etc). The whole set up needs to be seen to believe the immaculate work carried out. The ladies (from self help group) are carrying out a phenomenal job and keep smiling. Hats off to them! There are many places where the zero waste management is in action these days (ok ok..not in as many as I wud like, still) but what this place scores on is its innovation!
Innovation in segregation and various actions. One such is the way the sewage waste (ya, excreta and such like) handling. All that is pumped to an open area – pond like lagoon! Then some step like gradation separates in to 4 more squares. They are all connected but there is a small level difference. Some 100 ducks have been introduced in to this lagoon which eat off all the wastes one can see that the water is almost fresh at the last square. One can notice the water being very dark and thick in the point of entry and fresh enof at the last point and then is used to recharge the water table! Sun and ducks act here free of cost and convert waste to useful water!
Did I mention of the 30 days taken for organic waste to decompose? Here srini’s unique and innovative idea comes up, esp to treat the plantain wastes coming in loads from hotels, messes and marriage halls. These typically take >45 days to decompose. He buys off the cows that are taken to slaughter houses, thereby saving them from being killed for food sake and feeds them these plantain leaves. So u have cow dung which is the main ingredient in wormi comospting! The dung is also used (gobar gas) for the stoves in the canteen. Enviro friendly in every possible way! Hats off to such guys that some redemption is happening inspite of the reckless garbage generation and the damage done to the ecology by majority of us. That I shall be associated in some way in this project and try n add value is another matter, another write up for another day..