City Pulse

Doctors usually attend to symptoms of a disease, trying to stop it from metamorphosing into something untreatable. But here is a doctor who chose to attack the root cause of many lifestyle diseases; unhealthy environments. And, in a bid to keep her neighbourhood clean, she even gave up her practice to promote waste segregation. Meet Dr Shanthi Tummala, resident of HSR Layout, who gave up Dentistry to educate residents of HSR about waste management. 

Dr Shanthi says, “I continued my practice till September last year. In January same year, I got interested in waste management.” The Mandur crisis, that was slowly pushing Banglaore towards a massive garbage disposal disaster, piqued Shanthi’s interest in waste management. “I would see truckloads of garbage in front of my house, and feel very disappointed. I realized that change can only begin with us,” she says. Well-versed with waste segregation tactics herself, Shanthi embarked on a journey to introduce her neighbours to the benefits of waste segregation.        

Initially she started alone, going from home to home, teaching residents how to segregate between wet and dry waste. Soon, after 15 days, she was accompanied by her friend, and together the duo tried to cover as much of the 3,000 homes in HSR layout, as possible.  However, the anti-garbage activism cost Dr Shanthi her practice.  “I would stay back really late in my chambers to attend to my patients.  There came a point when I realized I will have to choose between my profession and passion,” she says.

The choice was clear. Though she loved being a doctor, her desire to rid her neighbourhood of unhealthy garbage habits was equally important to her.  “In September 2013, I quit my practice to focus on waste management,” the 39-year-old says.

Since then, it has been an uphill task for Shanthi, one fraught with many setbacks. “In spite of segregating, initially the whole programme was a failure in HSR.  We realized that the contractor would mix the waste together thus nullifying residents’ efforts.   We then got in touch with BBMP, as the contractors are employed by them, and asked them to help us out,” she explains.

After creating awareness about segregation, she focused on in insitu composting as well.  “We had BBMP give us a shredder and in one of our parks, along with the wet waste we would add dry leaves so as to have manure with high carbon content,” she says.   

Soon, thanks to the segregation, almost 800 kg of wet waste was generated, which would then be composted.

Shanthi also employed unique methods of composting.  “One of the models was anaerobic decomposition.  In this method, a pit would be dug which would be filled with wet waste and dry leaves. Then, a thin layer of mud would be used to cover the pit. After 30 to 40 days, it would be converted into manure,” she says. 

Another method is the aerobic decomposing. In this model, a layer of wet/dry waste is covered with yet another level of waste. 

However, composting in the parks had to be stopped after many residents complained against it.  “Though the High Court encourages decentralization of waste segregation, and disposal of the same, it is yet to take off. Some resident don’t like to see garbage in front of their homes. So we had to do away with composting,” explains Shanthi.

They now give 2,500-3,000 kg wet waste to Karnataka Compost Development Corporation (KCDC). 

Though Shanthi started off alone, today she has an ever growing team comprising concerned residents, students, volunteers from NGOs like ‘Let’s be the change’. “We have awareness campaigns every second Saturday. We go to various residences, neighbourhood and even schools, and explain to them the importance of waste segregation. On other days, we do a survey of various areas to see if they are implementing garbage segregating methods,” says this dogged anti-garbage activist. 

She adds, “Now our team of volunteers are concentrating on bulk generators (apartments) and we are being successful in that. My team of volunteers are the backbone of this success.”