Women’s Day: This Bengaluru entrepreneur has revolutionised waste management

Bengaluru, March 8: Today, March 8, is the date dedicated to women. It's a day to celebrate the women achievers and among them, a name is Poonam Bir Kasturi. An industrial designer and social entrepreneur based in Bengaluru, Poonam set up Daily Dump, which works towards changing the citizens' mindsets towards waste management in urban spaces, in 2006.

Daily Dump came up with a tall cylindrical-shaped composter made of terracotta to make the experience of waste composting at home a cool one. The composter reduces the pressure on public agencies dealing with processing of garbage but also the emission of methane gas. It is completely environment-friendly and for India's over-populated and over-polluted human settlements, nothing could be more helpful than this.

"I'm a trained industrial designer from NID, Ahmedabad. After I graduated in 1984, I worked in a small scale manufacturing company and then set up a craft-based design company called 'Industree.' I was also a founding faculty at the Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology in Bengaluru," Poonam was quoted as saying by The Better India.

Born in India's IT capital and raised here, Poonam always wanted to find a solution that would help people address the ever-increasing garbage problem. The Daily Dump's composter is an easy to use tool as one has to put the garbage inside it and cover it with remix powder which is also sold by Daily Dump.

"Compositing is a natural process. The chemistry is that if there is enough carbon, which comes from the remix powder, and enough oxygen, which is why the terracotta composter has holes, you do not generate any bad odour," Poonam told The Better India.

"Nearly 60% of your dustbin is made up of organic waste. So, if you keep 60% of this waste inside the vicinity of your house, the public infrastructure isn't under too much stress. Organic waste in landfills creates methane, a dangerous greenhouse gas. With compositing, you avoid this emission. You also create nutrition for the soil."

Even in case the residents who use the composter do not have their own gardens to use the compost, they can put it in the local park or in front of street trees.

Daily Sump today operates in as many 17 cities across India besides the US and Dubai.