Bengaluru temples, churches on eco drive, set the trend of composting waste

BENGALURU: Religious spaces generate large amounts of waste through their kitchens, flower offerings, gardens and food distribution practices, the volume of which only increases during festivities. The potential of turning this waste into valuable compost, however, is usually underestimated. About 20 temples and churches in Bengaluru are now setting the trend of composting waste on their premises.

“Religious spaces can influence and create awareness among visitors about responsible waste management practices,” said Arun Betraj, trustee of the Kalyana Ganapathy temple complex in Kalyan Nagar, which was the first religious space to experiment with the zero-waste model in 2016. “We made the temple a plastic-free zone and urged people to get their own containers for prasadam. There was resistance, but they eventually relented.”

The temple has replaced areca with reusable melamine plates. Cloth offerings made to the deity are reused to make cloth bags. The temple administration ensures that dry leaves, coco peat and kitchen waste is suitably used to create good-quality compost. “We invested Rs 1 lakh for the composters, but have already recovered Rs 50,000 by selling the four tonnes of compost we generated last year,” Betraj, an entrepreneur, said.


Other religious spaces that have followed suit include the Venugopala Swamy Temple in Malleswaram, Venkateshwara Temple and Iskcon in Seshadripuram, 12 temples in HSR Layout, three temples and the St Michael’s Church in Shanti Nagar and one temple in Kengeri.

Some institutions believe that being self-sufficient is better than depending on errant BBMP contractors. David Soans, committee member, St Andrew’s Church, said the contractors often refused or delayed collecting waste generated in the church, which predominantly comprised of leaves from the 100-odd trees in the Cubbon Road premises.

“Contractors gave excuses like their trucks not being able to enter the locality because of army restrictions. We used to pay Rs 3,000 per week for waste collection, but then they started demanding Rs 5,000, which was unreasonable,” said Soans. Since burning the leaves was not an option, the church installed two compost containers and created two ground-level pits. The staff was trained to handle compost.


Techie Vasuki Iyengar, who trains religious spaces through his venture Soil and Health, said that it was initially a challenge to change conventional mindsets. “Committees were ill-informed that composting on the premises will generate foul smell or attract insects. Now that spaces have started composting without problems, others are likely to follow suit.”

According to NS Ramakanth of the Solid Waste Management Round Table (SWMRT), political representatives must be inv olved in order to scale up such efforts. He played a role in involving local MLAs and ministers in HSR Layout, Koramangala, Seshadripuram and Malleshwaram to set up composters in temples and churches.

“Political will helps individual and community efforts in a big way. So making authorities participate in such initiatives is necessary.”