Marginalia: 

What was the turning point in your life that made you start on this journey towards sustainability?

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Vani Murthy:

I had always been a homemaker and had done nothing outside home, on my own. But there came a time when my children grew up, and I was exploring my options and decided to join SWMRT (Solid Waste Management Round Table). There, I met Dr. Meenakshi Bharath, who was doing a lot of projects and was so full of life. She basically pulled me into it! For the first time, I was actually doing things that I had never done before. I had never sent an email before and I had no idea about how to use a computer. I learnt all of it on the job.

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One of the projects we worked on was wealth out of waste. So, that led me to understand that a lot of resources are getting lost. Then, I visited a landfill. After that, I think there was no turning back. I started to get a deeper understanding of the connection between our waste and our environment, what we do will affect us in some form or the other. Everyone should know that what they generate is their responsibility. It's not the responsibility of governments or politicians and that, I think, was the biggest motivator for me to stay on course, since 2008. It's well beyond 12 years now.

 

Marginalia:

Tell us about the landfill visit.

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Vani Murthy:

First of all, the stink overwhelms you because it is mountains of garbage. You can't even imagine the volume of garbage we saw. A landfill is supposed to be a scientifically managed space. But so much gets dumped there that no machine can take care of all that. So it just becomes a dumping yard. In fact, the machines we saw weren’t even working. What was even more appalling is that there were villagers around, growing our food. And we wondered how they live there, what kind of life they must have. They're in such close proximity to something that can cause disease, something that stinks, something that enters the groundwater and makes it toxic and then contaminates the soil. We heard stories of villagers stopping lorries from coming and dumping in these landfills, talking about their sufferings, skin disease, and heavy fumes because the garbage burns constantly. So, seeing something like that had a huge impact. I mean, I can still recollect that smell, it is that strong. I, in fact, recommend people to go and see it and smell it. It is life changing.

 

Marginalia: 

What is your role in SWMRT?

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Vani Murthy:

All of us are volunteers. It started off when we attended a seminar on decentralized waste management, basically how individuals can take responsibility to segregate waste and compost at a small level. Breaking it down, trying to handle the minimum because when it aggregates, it becomes a humongous problem. You cannot retrieve anything from mixed waste. So it was about getting people to keep dry and wet waste separated, and getting all the fresh waste, twice a day. Fresh waste doesn't stink, it can be immediately processed and made into compost. A few of us at that seminar instantly connected and we decided to meet often, and at least get ourselves to talk to people. We looked at setting up small models, like an apartment model, a school model, a government office model, where everything is kept segregated, nothing is mixed, because when it gets mixed and gets dumped, we're losing out on a great resource that can go back for recycling. We saw a vibrant recycling industry, where they try to recover and reuse the stuff we are throwing away. An environmentalist from Bangalore saw the kind of passion we had and became an advisor. He asked us to get the municipality involved. This was our first official project; we made presentations to the municipal corporation, we went to meetings and they realised if a few citizens could understand this so much then why not the municipality.

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A city can transform itself, if we just look at waste differently. Waste is not something that you have to get rid of, but you have to be responsible for and therefore, pinning the complete responsibility on the generator is important. The municipality also mandated the city to segregate. So starting as a group, to get it mandated fully, became our first success. We still do have a lot of problems; there is no enforcement or penalization if you don't segregate. It is going to be a long way. 

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My role basically is awareness. And we don't just have citizen volunteers, we also have service providers and vendors of waste, as part of our team who have been given identity cards which makes them seem and feel important in their communities. Along with the segregation, the municipal corporation also mandated that every Ward should have a dry recycling center where they further sort, create value and aggregate the recyclable waste. We all played with our strengths, whoever can read and understand policies handles advocacy and law, there are people on the ground going with the health inspector and then there are people like me, who are sitting at home and creating awareness on social media. It started off on my own terrace with workshops on waste segregation, composting, gardening. For me, it was with experiments that I was trying to get more and more people to see how they can shift the way they look at waste, and start with small practices. And platforms like social media are really useful, they can be amazing tools, I must say, to spread the word. 

Marginalia:

Did you start off with the goal of having many followers? Was that always part of the plan? 

 

Vani Murthy:

No, absolutely not. I don't plan anything. To me, it is about how I connect with people. I have the passion to talk about things that are important. And if I get any platform, be it companies, schools, universities, welfare associations, I will go and talk. I used to always love taking pictures, short videos and putting it up on Facebook. For me, it was a way to keep all my experiences in one place. I am generally very unorganized. So it was fun to click pictures of wherever I go and then talk about it. Then I realized that there were people who had started following me. They asked questions, so I realised there is that curiosity in people about what can be done. I think it just pulls you in, and there is no stopping. 

 

Marginalia:

When you started off, how did it impact you personally and as an extension, your family and friends?

 

Vani Murthy:

Right from the beginning, I realized that when we need to make any changes, that change happens because you made a choice to be that way or to do that way. Very early on, I also realized that there will be a lot of people who are not interested or don't want to comply. I just let them be because there's no point in wasting my time when I can talk to 10 others who think it's a good idea. I have been this way all along so nothing puts me off anymore. It's okay, if they know better, they will do better. So I just leave it there. When it comes to my house, my passion is so overpowering, they just let me do what I want. They're very proud when I am on TV and radio or there’s an article about me. When my mother-in-law was alive, she used to be so proud that she used to tell all the relatives about my talks. For me, as someone who hasn't done anything professionally, this was very exciting. And I think passion drove the whole thing. I didn't have any kind of mission statement that I will do this and this and that, I don't plan anything. I just take it as organically as it comes. And when I am in this space, it keeps me very alive. Because I get to talk about something that's so important. If you look at the followers, that's where it translates. It comes from a place of excitement, that this is something that I'm deeply connected to, and I'm just excited about it.

Marginalia:

Do you have any role model that you look up to, especially in this field?

 

Vani Murthy:

I think it's my team. Every day provides some new motivation. It could be just somebody who wrote to me and said some nice things. I think all this is what keeps me going. I don't think I have somebody that I look up to, for this space. A friend of mine from Malleswaram started the We Care for Malleswaram campaign. So, we looked at that model and are hoping that every area in Bangalore will have a team which will call themselves, We Care for Indira Nagar and so on. The secret, I think, is to get very localized. 

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In the beginning, it was with the kids in my building, we'd go in front of our apartment, put up posters, they'd hold placards, invite people walking up and down to come and talk, listen to what we are saying, show them what are the different categories of waste. So I love to have that as a strength to continue and also create different levels, set different standards, each one trying to catch up with the other. So I think it is the people I interact with where I draw my inspiration from, like Dr. Meenakshi Bharath.

Marginalia:

Is there one thing that you would want every individual to practice and why? 

 

Vani Murthy:

When it comes to taking care of the environment there are so many things that you can do. I would always look at how you can start with a very small practice, and actually enter a path. You will organically get drawn to doing many more things. Sustainable living is about adopting one practice for the rest of your life. It's not about wanting to be part of some kind of new trend that's happening. No, it is about your connection to nature. So because we work around waste, I would always look at, can we generate less waste? If there's one thing that people should start off is saying that since I am responsible for creating that waste, can I generate less? How do I move to looking at myself as a sustainable person by stopping or refusing anything that is single use, something you use once and discard. It makes no sense! Can't we go back to practices of earlier generations where we didn't have this kind of waste? Can I change my consumption patterns? And what else can I do?

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Reduce, reuse, recycle is the norm, I say refuse first. Just say no to a straw, a plastic bag, it could be bottled water. It could be single-use sanitary napkins and tampons. Anything that is used once and discarded should be our first target.

 

Marginalia:

You mentioned going back to practices from earlier generations, what exactly did you mean?

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Vani Murthy:

I think everything that I do is going back in time. If I have any functions in my house, it's completely like those days where you had steel tumblers, steel plates and steel cups, or probably the banana leaf, there are no disposable items. For the past 10 years, festivals in my house have been very minimal. I have scaled down many things in my life. And I've gone back to days when we were using natural cleaners, right from my shampoos. I use soap nuts, and ash to wash my vessels. I feel it's not a big deal, when you understand the impact of the chemicals that you discharge. So when you get sensitive about where it is going, how it is impacting the ecosystem, because it's going to lead somewhere, it could have gone into a river or the ocean, and there is life there. The minute we contaminate, we are completely changing the ecosystem. Over a period of generations, earth will survive, what will get hit is the quality of life for the living beings on this planet. Once I started growing my own food, I realized what real food is, it has to be grown in living soil, and when you put so many chemicals in it, it's dead. You are completely depleting the land of life. So, I think we have a lot to learn from practices from a few generations back.

Marginalia:

There is this notion that people have when it comes to sustainable living that it's often more expensive to lead a sustainable life.

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Vani Murthy:

I think it comes down to convenience, it is convenient to be this way because you have gotten so used to it. You don't want to shift because it's so easy not to carry your own bottle which makes your bag heavy. You can just buy bottled water and discard the plastic bottle. Convenience has taken over concern for the environment. How is it going to be more expensive, if for instance, I have 20 guests in my house and I decide to use the vessels I already own instead of buying paper plates and cups which most people do? I have cut down on buying expensive shampoos, now I use biochemicals which I make at home as my shampoo and conditioner. So my shift has actually helped me save money. I don't go to supermarkets anymore, I source all my food directly from the farmer. The word organic has actually changed the way people think, they think organic means expensive. Organic means going to a brand and buying. I don't buy from anybody who gives me a certificate that I'm buying organic. I don't understand these labels, nobody ever gave us certificates saying these food items contain these many pesticides or these many chemical fertilizers that actually have the potential to eventually kill you. I'm not looking for certificates to tell me that this food is safe for me to eat but I will believe a farmer community that will send me food that they eat. 

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Expensive is just an excuse, people are way too comfortable with their lifestyle. I was lucky that when I got into this field, I learned more about community supported agriculture. You want to reward those people who still believe in good practices in agriculture. So they all just come together. I mean, it's the energy that brings everything together. And you're doing it slowly. It's not like you're overwhelming yourself with all these different practices all at one time and there's always so much more to learn. So the shift has to be gradual. Like I said, it has to be very conscious consumption patterns, and also deeply understanding our impact on nature.

Marginalia:

What changes have you made to be more sustainable on a day-to-day basis? 

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Vani Murthy:

I get up, the toothbrush that I use is a bamboo toothbrush along with tooth powders. The soap that I use, the shampoo that I use, the body wash that I use are products that I either make or source from natural brands. And all these products don't lather so they don't need as much water to wash off. And they don’t have chemicals that are going down the drain. We used to get milk in the bottle. But now because of the pandemic, it's safer as a packet so that shift went back. I cook all my meals, try not to waste too much. I love washing and I like to use all these different powders that I keep because of which my house help has also shifted from chemical cleaners to natural cleaners. I also lend out vessels and other items to friends or family, anybody who is having a get-together. I also talk about whatever practices I take up and put them up on my social media. In a day of my life, everything that I do is not content that is curated, it's just how my day goes. 

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I love butterflies, so I make sure that I have host plants on my terrace where they can come and lay their eggs. And sometimes I put them in a box and feed them fresh leaves. I see their entire lifecycle and the day they come out of the cocoon and take their first flight, that is just exhilarating.