“Waste is an urgent issue,” said Poonam Bir Kasturi, the founder of Daily Dump, a city-based organisation that makes composting products. So, how do you get others to feel this urgency, asked Kasturi, who was moderating ‘Wasting Away: A Panel Discussion on Resource Management’ held at the Science Gallery, Bengaluru, part of the Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan’s ongoing Critical Zones programme.
It was a question that most of the panellists —Mansoor Gous of Hasiru Dala, Saarim Khursheed of WhyWaste, Elizabeth Yorke of Edible Issues and Sahar Mansoor of Bare Necessities — must contend with regularly, given that they, like Kasturi, work in the sustainability and resource management space.
Khursheed, for instance, said that it is important not to start from a place of fear and doom. Instead, he prefers trying to educate people. teaching them how to apply first principles thinking to the issue. “You take a problem and break it down to the simplest level,” he said, going on to talk about how the WhyWaste app, for instance, can help with water conservation by creating consciousness. “It gives you the idea that this is the amount of water you have used.,” he said while Mansoor, too, agreed that she preferred the idea of a you-can-do-it attitude rather than a fear-based rhetoric. “
Excitement and awareness
Over the conversation, which went from how there is an increased awareness and interest in more sustainable lifestyles to how collaboration can play a huge role in the conservation and resource management narrative, whether a circular economy can ever be scaled enough to make a difference, and the role of innovation, the panellists brainstormed on ways to build a cleaner, greener world. “Í think there is a lot of awareness and excitement around sustainability,” said Mansoor, who felt that with more and more organisations entering this space, “the solutions are enormous.”
The power of collaboration when it came to finding solutions was reiterated several times at the event. Yorke, a chef and researcher, spoke about the need for it in the food industry, which works in silos today, something that wasn’t always the case. For centuries, she said, bakers and brewers worked in similar spaces because they shared ingredients like flour, grain, yeast and water. They also shared byproducts, with the bakers giving stale bread to the brewer while the brewer would offer spent grains in return. “We live in cities where everything is so disintegrated and disassociated,” said Yorke, also the founder of Saving Grains, which offers a range of delicious products made of “spent grains”, a by-product of beer brewing. “By-products can be used to nurture and nourish communities,” added Yorke, a strong proponent of upcycling.
Challenges and more
The panelists also spoke about some of the challenges they encountered in their journey. While waste entrepreneur Gous, who operates a Dry Waste Collection Centre in Ward 168, Pattabiramnagar, spoke about how people don’t always dispose of takeout containers responsibly, making it very challenging for the waste pickers who handle dry waste, Yorke talked about things one needed to account for while upcycling food, which include acceptability, taste and health.
Another big challenge? Scalability. “Can we be a big brand? ” asked Kasturi, a question that garnered mixed reactions from the various panellists. “I think we need to see waste through a community lens... something focused on my area rather than solving a problem for everyone,” said Khursheed while Mansoor pointed out that we need a combination of big, small and medium enterprises in this space. “We need to be cautious of silver bullet solution,” she said. “Some solutions are meant to scale, and some are not. “
