BENGALURU, India — In India, which has a population of 1.3 billion, every household generates around 300 grams of vegetable waste daily. But this waste isn’t properly utilized.
We have all come across bio enzymes and compost. But a 10-year-old from India’s tech city Bengaluru in southern state Karnataka, has done something people her age don’t care about. But she generated paper from daily kitchen waste.
Manya Harsha, a sustainability influencer and a budding environment activist, is a 6th grader at Vibgyor High BTM. While the entire world got locked indoors, she got busy recycling daily kitchen waste into handmade vegetable paper.
“Everyday kitchen waste to each paper a day” was her simple mantra throughout the experiments.
“Born and brought up in Bengaluru, I see the beautiful garden city slowly turned down by heaps of garbage dumped on the roadsides,” said Harsha.
“How the quantity of waste is increasing every passing day has been a matter of huge concern.”
“This scenario made me think for a permanent solution as to how the flower and plant waste can be utilized in an eco-friendly manner,” said Harsha.
“Eight trees are sacrificed for 1,000 pounds of paper. Now, with eight0ten onion peels, I can make two or three A4 size papers,” she said.
“A pound of peas husk can make three A4 size sheets, and two-three baby corn husks make around two A4 size sheets.”
These colorful vegetable papers are just like any other handmade paper. You can write, draw, paint, fold and create art out of it.
“Instead of chopping trees for paper, let’s recycle the kitchen waste into eco-friendly vegetable paper. Let’s all together join hands to restore our earth,” Harsha said.
Despite the lockdown, Harsha’s environment-friendly activities never took a setback.
Her activities involve various campaigns like Restore Our Earth Campaign, Strike against Plastic Campaign, Cleanup Drive at Markhonalli Dam & Varca beach, on World Water Day.
UN-Water has lauded the young girl’s efforts. She has also been The Water Heroes awardee in 2020 by the ministry of Jal Shakti.
A similar story took place in Delhi, where an artist used plastic waste as a raw material to create artwork. Manveer Singh has utilized 550 pounds of plastic in three years, diverting it from being dumped at landfills.
He started this innovative eco-friendly work in April 2018, has sold three artworks overseas—two in Abu Dhabi and one in Germany.
(With inputs from ANI)
(Edited by Amrita Das and Pallavi Mehra. Map by Urvashi Makwana)
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