Mumbai Day 2

Maharashtra Nature Park, Mumbai

First stop of the day... we thought that this was going to be a city farm and community composting project in action, but this is an aspiration rather than a reality at the moment. The Maharashtra Nature Park (MNP) is owned by the council and run by the Maharashtra Nature Park Society, it is a landfill reclamation facility covering 37 acres. The MNP has in the past had composting on site which was managed in-house, this stopped following monsoon floods which resulted in contaminated land that killed off the worms and other organisms. Composting has not been restarted at scale since.

Anil, is trying to develop a composting project here and has a working group of around 6 people who meet fortnightly to ‘compost’ (see below*). The aim of this project will be to supplement the Daily Dump home composting programme, providing a composting facility for local residents. Anil is the product developer of Daily Dump, an informative guide and home composting kit comprising, terracotta compost pots, rake, activator & Neem powder. There are two main product choices, the ‘leave-it pot’ and the Kambha (Moto Lota, Patta Kambha, Gamla), a large lidded pot, intended for semi composted material storage or green waste composting and a 3 tiered modular unit that manages kitchen waste.

The composting process is more of an experimental learning experience, with five 1m x 1m by 1 brick high units. The brick enclosure comprises a soil base which had a mixture of shredded leaves and grasses on the top, like a mulch, seedlings are grown on this substrate – see pic...

Mumbai University

Then to Mumbai University where we met with Jottie, a fabulous lady who works for XXXXXX, empowerment of women through enterprise opportunities. She was busy running the women’s international playwright conference, hence a quick overview and no project visit. Jotti works with women in Dharavi, she has managed to get contracts with the local council for the delivery of waste services and is doing a great job in developing a social economy in Mumbai. She uses the Daily Dump products and also operates 6 residential biogas plants in Mumbai. Jotti is part of the Waste Picker delegation who will be attending COP15 in December, expect more information on these activities then.