Sitting back and blaming the government for all the ills is the easiest part. But once people realised that change begins within oneself, anything can be accomplished. This is the philosophy by which Minku Buttar lives her life, having brought all the people in her community together to segregate garbage and sell off dry waste.

“I live in a community in Whitefield and we conducted our first drive about two years ago. I attended a lot of talks by the BBMP and Rotary on waste segregation and learnt what can be done at source. The average Indian wakes at the break of dawn, cleans the house and then throws the garbage out on the street, or, if nobody is looking, in the neighbour’s yard! When I started talking to people about waste segregation, I realised that what is taken for granted overseas is something you need to inculcate here”, she says.

Minku began talking to her community about processes like composting and mulching, teaching them that waste is not just waste, but potential wealth. And that is how WOW, or Wealth out of Waste, began two years ago.

“We started out on a drive to clean all the streets leading out of the community to the main road, we were the ragpickers for the day”, said Minku. “It was such a hard process to get going.” As most people left the task of garbage disposal to the domestic helps, Minku took it upon herself to teach the gardening and housekeeping staff what to do. “I gave them three sacks and told them what to do. An average household generates betweeen 300 to 500 gm of waste each day of which 75 per cent is dry waste and the remainder wet or kitchen waste. Dry waste is then further segregated into plastic, paper, glass and metal. I had to teach people how to rinse out a carton of milk or fruit juice and to crush it”, she recounts.

Segregation of waste at source is an important step in dealing with garbage disposal, but can come to naught if the civic agencies fail to act from there on. The segregated waste ends up in the landfills and the dry waste is taken to vendors who, in turn, sell it to companies who use it for recycling. So, somebody’s plastic waste is used to line the roads.

“Despite the claims of the BBMP that garbage processing contracts have been given to private companies, I still do not have any confidence in the system”, admits Minku. “Landfills have become a major issue now, so they say a fine will be imposed if waste is not segregated at source. I would like to see how this turns out, because this process needs to be overseen constantly, it’s not just about making themselves look good at the start. It is up to communities to dispose of their waste properly,” she believes.

“My team was going from house to house with small wheelbarrows and we later got a big trolley to get it done at one shot”, she said. A community landfill is next on Minku’s ambitious agenda and composting is being done individually. The compost from kitchen waste will go back to their own gardens, while the excess will be sold and proceeds given to the medical needs of the housekeeping and gardening staff.

Moreover, Minku also organised a fundraiser on Saturday for a students’ home. “Our tribal and rural kids are grossly neglected. There is a 68 per cent dropout rate because they have to walk 5-10 km to get to the nearest school. So, students from BPL families, with the consent of their parents, are sent to student homes where they are well taken care of and sent to school each day. We cannot always have a student home close to a school because land is donated to us and we can dictate where it should be, so we also arrange for vans to drive these children to school if necessary,” said Minku, who is an active volunteer with Aim for Seva in Bengaluru.

The fundraiser also focused on spreading a message of hope and celebrating India as one state. “We actually recreated Punjab here in Bengaluru”, she said. “We can identify social causes that need to be attended to and they all need a collective effort”, said Minku, who likes to take up neglected causes. “We must join hands. To hope for change is one thing, but good intentions never get one anywhere. It is nice to sit back and wait for our elected representatives to get things done, but that does not seem to work. So be the change you want to see”.