Daily Dump, a solution to overcome a poor public service
In Bangalore, encountered a clever solution using pottery for compost. Probably not very new, yet I thought I would post this anyway, to make sure I also spread the word of mouth, particularly to the audience who may think that composting requires big and expensive machines in Japan.
Daily Dump is a pottery which has a very traditional Indian appearance and blends into the city of Bangalore. However, do not be fooled, as this is a result of a clever invention, driven by an entrepreneur and a designer Poonam Bir Katsuri. Taking the fact that the city of Bangalore is facing a rapid economic growth, increasingly becoming populated and generating more waste, Katsuri thought of the solution to act at its source. Composting your own garbage works tremendously well in India, as unlike many mega cities, India’s individual waste are largely organic.
Although public service exist, collection of waste is not working in Bangalore streets.
The usage is very simple. The only thing you have to do is to place your garbage into the pot. Daily dump is consisted of a lid and three pots, and the process is so that you always place the garbage at top, and continue circulating the pots. By the time it reaches to the end, you will have the compost ready.
How it could look like at the top pot.
How it could look like in the second pot. The waste has been biodegraded already. By the time it reaches the third, the waste is ready for another use.
If you think of the easiest way to handle food waste, is of course, to return them into soil. I remember this is what my parents did, and still does, as their house is surrounded by small but sufficient area of land which is covered with soil and allows them into a small hole dug by my dad. But urban lives do not allow everyone to live this way. And although thousands of miles away, the same problem lies here in Bangalore, where many people in the city live in a flat with no access to soil. That is why this Daily Dump works so well.
Some more information here at Helsinki Design Lab on Daily Dump. Great article which describes the scale of the waste problem in India, and how this simple solution could be an answer.
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Glad that you enjoyed the case study on Daily Dump’s amazing work. We will be posting a short film about their efforts in the next couple weeks, so check back in on the blog.
One note, though. It’s Helsinki Design Lab, not Hub.
Thanks for the great post (and pictures).
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we got a daily dump in our roof – it’s really not something i could possibly keep inside the house, as it attracts a lot of insects. we can only use fresh food waste as we want to use it for compost for our plants.
most residential areas have ‘daily dump’ fields, typically a government-owned piece of land that is not used. a lot of garbage ends up piling up here, as the local garbage collection is still done by manual workers lugging her small carts around. i don’t know if they are on their own or employed by government. i was told to pay them a little so that they can make sure no garbage will be left in front of your house. they empty their small carts there. such a field will be also a feeding ground of the local cows and dogs – if there are fresh vegetable pieces they will eat them. for the local cow population i do sometimes wonder – if everyone starts using daily dump at home, that will cut cows’ only source of (relatively) fresh vegetable intake.
while there is no recycling by the official manner – there are people who would come to these fields and gather whatever useful, mostly PET bottles. every morning there are also people who would shout ‘paper’ around the neighborhood to collect paper to recycle. they are entrepreneurs.
the real problem is plastics, especially the ones that cannot be obviously recycled. the act of using daily dump is indeed graceful. but organic garbage does not create a big disaster around here except the lingering problem of domestic pests. sure, it would make the environment less stinky if we contain the organic waste. cows get choked to death eating plastic bags in the garbage field. delhi’s air gets filled with toxic fumes in the evening as people burn their garbage whatever they are.