Dwarka couple take the 'Waste to flowers' route!

While the whole system is busy in getting a sustainable model for the waste management and composting, here in Dwarka, a couple, Arvind Rudra and Asha Rudra, are already on to it. 

The Rudra couple, who live in Harmony Apartments Sector 4, have been managing their kitchen and puja waste using a gardening experiment at their Dwarka office and home. The success of the experiment can be corroborated by the presence of many pots full of beautiful flowers at their home and office. . They have been doing this successful experiment for more than six months now.

Arvind Rudra says, "This whole story of our flowers started with our problem. The problem was small insects in our office due to the waste generated that consisted of tea leaves. Almost every office generates such waste. The second problem was dealing with the Pooja flowers offered in the small temple of our office. These problems compelled us to think upon the ways to handle such waste."

The Rudra couple, who themselves are entrepreneurs and experts in environment audit, then started on their experiment. Asha Rudra says, "At first, we started segregating wet tea leaves and the waste flowers and started to put them in a makeshift bin made out of a cut water bottle. After about two months, we could see small plants sprouting out, which grew up to be marigold flower plants. We brought a few earthen pots and then started planting these saplings into them. We watered them regularly and were able to get the first crop of flowers."

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Even though the Rudra couple were initially successful, the entire process was not free of challenges. The problem was these plants were big in size and with every brisk breeze, the pots that held them would topple down and some soil would spill out. Some pots even broke at times. "In response to this issue, we started cutting the growing tips of the plants once they became almost six inches high. This ensured that we got small and manageable plants and they were laden with the flowers. Also,
not all the flowers we planted were in good shape. We started identifying the flowers we like and started to plant only them." shared Arvind Rudra.

According to the couple, the process was simple, but required some innovations. While talking about the process, the couple shared, "This process is very simple. We have to dry these marigold leaves and put them in a pot, mix them with the top surface of pot soil and water them regularly. Then we get these saplings, which we then plant in a single pot, one at a time."

The Rudra couple have already completed three cycles of this process. While in the first cycle, they say they got only 50%  success, now they have reached at almost 95% success. "Motivated by all of this, now we have sown Lady finger (Bhindi) and tomatoes and `have already got their plants ready. We are awaiting their fruits now." said Arvind Rudra with a smile.

The Rudra couple shared that what they learnt was useful for the waste management at source level in the city like Delhi. Asha Rudra emphasised, "A suggestion to the people who plan to use this process at their homes is that they must first improve the quality of the soil. We make it by mixing three ingredients- soil from our own locality, Yamuna Sand (popularly called Ret) and cow or buffalo dung in equal proportions. On top of all this sunlight is very important. One can get a lot of flowers only in the presence of sunlight. We hope you are ready to do your gardening experiment."