Bengaluru-based couple Shilpa Maheshwari and Nitin Sinha decided to get innovative to manage their kitchen waste.

Shilpa decided to try her hand at composting.

She began this journey with two things — buckets and cocopeat.

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The first step was to drill holes at the bottom of four buckets. Then she deposited the kitchen waste in these over the next month.

The liquid that left the bucket through the holes was used as a pest repellent, while the remnants in the bucket were mixed with cocopeat.

By the end of the month, the compost was ready.

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The couple used this compost as an organic fertiliser to grow vegetables through a method called pot-based gardening.

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This involves mixing soil with extra nutrients to make up for the space crunch.

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Through this unique process, they grow seasonal vegetables like ladies finger, radish, capsicum, cauliflowers, cabbage, a variety of beans, bitter gourd, bottle gourd, lemon, etc.

Their technique has a dual vantage — it helps them fulfil 60 per cent of their vegetable needs, and the couple has not generated any kind of wet waste in the last three years.

“You do not require acres of land to do the least to save the environment,” says Nitin.

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