2 days ago
Temple waste turns into organic fertiliser through ‘Swachh Devalayam'!
Visakhapatnam: As floral offerings in temples find their way to landfills like the rest of the garbage from households, offices, hotels and industries, members of Rotary Club Vizag Couples (RCVC) decided to convert them into a valuable garden resource through their initiative.
On a daily basis, most devotees offer fresh flowers, fruits and coconuts to deities of the shrine to perform puja. How about collecting and converting them into organic manure instead of allowing them to pile up in the premises corners that eventually enter landfills. It is the same concept that nudged the club members to work on a sustainable project known as 'Swachh Devalayam.'
After deriving a desirable outcome from its first edition of the endeavour implemented at Panduranga Swamy temple, the club members took the project forward to Kali Mata temple located at RK Beach in Visakhapatnam.
Even as organisations, institutions and departments have been taking up plantation and cleanliness drives as part of the Swachh Bharat mission, the club members explored ways to convert temple waste into organic manure. 'Apart from using them for temple gardening, the fertilisers generated through composting temple waste are given away to people to help them cater to their garden requirements,' shares Sravani Chitturi, secretary of the RCVC.
Temple waste can effectively be recycled into nutrient-rich organic fertiliser through composting. The process not just minimises landfill waste to an extent but also provides a valuable resource for healthier gardening. 'It is one of the sustainable methods to adopt improved management of temple waste. Through 'Swachh Devalayam', we want to encourage other shrines too to follow suit,' shares Asha Jasti, RCVC youth services director, with The Hans India.
As part of the exercise, dried flowers, leaves, fruit peels and other plant-based waste are segregated and added to a large bin for composting, following a layered approach with microbes for the next 40 days. Later, liquid compost is extracted from the collection and used as plant fertilisers.
In addition to recycling temple waste and setting up rainwater harvesting pits, the club members also plant 'sacred trees' such as 'bilvam', 'maaredu' 'tulasi', among others, in the premises of theshrine.
