As now the focus is on getting a sustainable model for the waste management and composting, Dwarka-based couple, Arvind Rudra and Asha Rudra, from Harmony Apartments Sector 4 have been managing the waste generated from the kitchen and during pooja to get beautiful flowers. They have been doing this for more than six months now.
The idea of this kind of gardening stuck them when they were getting perturbed by the pesticide problem in their office.
“This whole story of our flowers started with our problem of insects in our office. And, we figured out that the problem was because of the waste we throw in the dustbin be it the flowers or tea leaves," Arvind told City Spidey.
Incidentally, the couple is also an entrepreneur and environmentalist. His wife shared how they started waste management.
"At first we started segregating wet tea leaves and started putting the waste flowers also in a makeshift bin made out of cut water bottle. After, say about two months we started seeing small saplings sprouting out. And, we were shocked to see that those saplings turned into marigold flower plants, which had come out of our pooja waste. We watered them regularly and were able to get the first crop of flowers," he said.
After getting the success, the couple were happy but then the challenge was their post care.
“We were again having one more problem that of having big plants, we thought again and researched a bit and 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,” shared Arvind.
Not only flowers but also they did the same experiment with vegetables like tomato and lady's finger.
“Motivated by all this now we have sown Lady's finger (Bhindi) and tomatoes, have already got their plants ready and are waiting for their fruits which if we get will again share to you,” Arvind added.
The couple feels waste management is useful for metropolitan cities.
“Out of this whole process we learnt horticulture in the metro city, which we feel every person should learn," he concluded.
