Being Earth Conscious - Year End Round up

As the year ends and winter sets in, we are grounded by the cold air - we give you this year's last round up.

Like we yearn for the sun's warmth, we were welcomed with warmth from students of five low income schools in Talawde thanks to the Green Schools' Program funded by Mahindra Lifespace Developers Ltd. CSR. Along with the sustainability team of MLDL, we were welcomed with warmth and green enthusiasm by these schools. In each of these schools, in partnership with Know How Foundation we set up composting infrastructure, plastic bank and a vegetable garden.

A group of 20 students, the Green Army, in each school are maintaining these facilities. They are composting and also influencing their peers to bring kitchen scraps and plastic to school for composting and recycling. Not just that, they're also growing their own vegetables (chillies, brinjals, spinach, gourds) and nurturing some herbs (lemongrass, mint, tulsi). They will influence their neighbours and parents to also build these habits at home.

Books on waste segregation, composting and sustainable living were also provided to their libraries. We got them the best - books from Daily Dump, Trashnomics from Solid Waste Management Roundtable ( SWMRT), Pratham Books' Wet & Dry; Anand; Plasto; arvind guptaji's famous Toys from trash & Science from Scrap - are anchors for the teachers to integrate waste into daily learning. We made this a zero waste event thanks to the ZerOware . MLDL volunteers also spent some time with the children, discussing with them about pressing problems on waste.

Students were the flavour for our team in December. It was interesting to have students - Alvaro Calle and Antonio Castejon who are studying sustainable innovation and social entrepreneurship at University of Mondragon, Bilbao, Spain visit us as part of their study of Pune’s waste management systems.

They're here after spending a few weeks studying the waste systems in Seoul, South Korea. It was a pleasure to show them our project at Yuthika Baner, where we compost over 500 kg of kitchen waste every day for the last 7 years.

And while the older kids were so enthused with waste, Anil Gokarn spoke to young saplings from Sapling School in Pune. Children were excited to see earthworms.

We are particularly thrilled by how much kids already know about conscious living and understand the real solutions are on ground.

And while this festive spirit continues, we are also pleased to share with you the clean up we did in partnership with Know How Foundation at Hinjawadi. We hope that clean up drives can have a beautiful impact in the vicinity. For us, it's always the opportunity to begin and sustain zero waste.

We wish all of you a Happy New Year, and hope for a Green 2025!