Eco-Friendly and Economically Sustainable Model for Wet Waste Management

  All municipalities irrespective of their tier spend a major part of the budget on waste management. Improper segregation and landfilling of mixed waste have led to high amounts of soil, air and water pollution. Current wet waste processing methods are expensive, land intensive and produce high amounts of greenhouse gas. Saeel Momin, Founder at E&P Community Farms has come up with a solution for the same.  

E&P Community Farms is third the Cohort incubatee of Atal Incubation Centre (AIC)- Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini (RMP). Saeel points out that, “use of full potential of E&P waste processing bins and black soldier fly larvae (BSFL) to process all organic waste at source. The process is odorless so that bins can be installed within residential areas. Since 65% of waste is wet waste, adoption of this model will reduce waste management cost by up to 65%. Once waste is processed, it produces high amounts of highly nutritional unprocessed liquid fertilizer.

The E&P waste processing unit is designed to support all rearing stages of the life of black soldier fly. The unit has a processing section; waste can be added to the bin using the top latch directly into the processing section. The unit allows accelerated waste processing without any foul odor. This makes it an ideal unit to be installed in any populated location. Each unit costs Rs 25,000 and can process waste of up to 20 kg per day. The process does not require any oversight, making this an affordable alternative for housing societies, clustered houses and villages.

Saeel added that, our project works for partnering with rural women to produce high quality organic fungicide and immunity boosters for plants, from waste generated in the community. The project is installed in 12 villages and Rajgurunagar Municipal Corporation.  Fertilizer has shown exceptional results on crops such as onion, tomato, brinjal, wheat, beans and papaya amongst others. Once commercialisation of fertilizer begins, our current pilot will increase the income of more than 250 rural women. E&P's process and contribution qualified them into the finals of UNDP youth Co:Lab amongst  389 startups across India. 

E&P vermin composter is installed in a village in collaboration with local woman self-help group and an external investor. The self-help group spreads awareness about waste management and is responsible to process and package the fertilizer. E&P community farm assists in regular maintenance and assistance in sales and marketing. Revenue from fertilizer sale is divided between E&P community farm and self-help group, creating a parallel source of revenue for women in rural communities. 

The goal and objective of the project is to offer an eco-friendly and economically sustainable model for wet waste management that would generate rural jobs and increase farmers income.