Making the Best out of the Waste

Authored by ShabbirKanchwala, Senior Vice President, K Raheja Corp The growing concerns of climate change has made environment protection the need of the hour. To take cognizance of this and to act on it by preserving the environment should be every individuals’ responsibility. Most often, we see that waste gets accumulated haphazardly leading to clogging and deterioration of marine life and nature and this is caused by the improper disposal of waste by people. Waste Management which includes segregation of dry and wet waste plays a key role here to ensure the safe preservation of nature and creating a greener and cleaner city for generations to come. When it comes to best waste management practices, K Raheja Corp is ahead of the curve owing to its excellent track record in creating some of the largest business parks in India. Our strong business acumen coupled with a deep understanding of sustainability enables us to understand the severe effects of environmental degradation and the steps we can take to navigate through this challenge. Backed with our 'Green Vision,' to commit towards making all our commercial projects LEED & IGBC Green Certified, we signed a memorandum of understanding with the CII-Green Building Council to construct Green buildings, back in 2007. We have developed over 4.75 crore square feet of Green building footprint, spread across the West and South of India as of March 2019. Our business parks go with the names of Mindspace and Commerzone and are gated business communities offering world-class infrastructure. At our business park, Mindspace, we have an end to end waste management system in place to manage and make the best of waste. One of the practices we follow is the composting of wet waste using organic waste converters which requires very less maintenance and manpower for operation.

• All buildings at Mindspace have a dedicated room for collection and storage of garbage and waste materials. Representatives of clients deposit the segregated waste with appropriate name tags in this room.
• These rooms are segregated into dry waste and wet waste for easy collection.
• The facility staff which comprises of a team of 5-7 individuals then collect wet waste in biodegradable polythene bags.
• The waste is checked before it goes for composting, and due to the name tags on the garbage bags, if there are any defaulters, they can be back tracked and sent photographs and videos of the incorrectly collected waste material.
• Post that, organic waste converters (OWC) are then used to biomechanically treat segregated organic waste. The final output is a fine, odorless, homogenous, and dehydrated mixture.
• Once the biomechanically treated product is formed, the mixture is inoculated with microbial culture which is subjected to further curing process. The final compost is rich in nutrients and utilized as organic manure for landscaping.

  The amount of waste collected ranges from 250 kg to 3000 kg as it largely depends on the size of the facility across Mumbai, however, we generate approximately 200 kgs of compost on a daily basis at our business parks. The clients at the business parks are also regularly informed through workshops about the segregation of waste and about the methods for effective waste management. We also send the dry waste collected from the Business Park to the recycling plants of Maharashtra Pollution Control Board approved (MPCB) vendors for further recycling. Through these meticulously implemented practices, all the waste is reused within our business park or sent for recycling, thus we ensure that very little inert waste goes out to the local landfills. The waste management facility staff at Mindspace, Airoli held a one day workshop for the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation’s Horticulture team which also included a tour of the campus and facility. They were taught the process and benefits of the procedure to ensure a cleaner city and the NMMC team was inspired by the process and wished to implement the same at their sites as well. Another important function of K Raheja Corp’s waste management system is of garden waste vermicomposting.

• Horticulture waste is collected, shredded, and filled in HDPE beds which is then sprinkled with cow dung slurry or EM solution for pre-composting.
• The mixture is fed to a variety of earthworms named ‘Eiseniafoetida’ for vermicomposting under ideal moisture and temperature conditions.
• The nutrient-rich vermicompost is ready in 90 days and the end product is used in landscape area and urban farming.
• The efficient composting program is capable of producing a high-quality soil amendment and has a large variety of end users.

Using water wisely and in a responsible manner is just as important as waste management for the preservation of environment. In lieu of this, we have a sewage treatment plant which helps to remove the contaminants from wastewater, through physical, chemical, and biological processes and produces environmentally safe treated wastewater. This treated water is reused for flushing, gardening & HVAC and reduces demand for municipal potable water by 20-30% at the project. We aim to provide our clients and employees with not just employment, but employment that is cocooned in a green environ. Thus we conceptualized and created our Mindspace business parks that are truly a self-sufficient business hubs providing the right infrastructure and technology along with being sustainable where waste does not go waste. Environment is no one’s property to destroy; it’s everyone’s responsibility to protect. – MohithAgadi, Author, Journalist and Film Producer.