“I enjoyed being in my terrace garden in touch with the soil. We started composting our wet waste and it nourished the soil. I enjoyed the company of birds who visited our terrace and I started placing water and leftover food for them. So food waste and wet waste were taken care of; the only thing left was dry waste!

Out of curiosity, I started collecting our paper, plastic and cardboard waste in a box at home. I was shocked when I saw we were generating at least 6 kgs of recyclable dry waste per month. Meanwhile, in my office, I observed that piles of used paper were just disposed of, along with wet waste. I realized paper waste could actually be segregated for recycling instead of polluting the landfill.

At our office, I tried an experiment – I placed a box on the premises with a sign urging people to discard their used paper in the box. Then over a month, we collected 20 kgs of paper waste and sent it for recycling. We realized how important it was to collect paper waste separately to prevent it from rotting in the landfill. Recycling paper waste could save trees from being cut for producing virgin paper from the pulp of trees.