Activated carbon is one of the most effective media for removing a wide range of contaminants from industrial and municipal waste waters, landfill leachate and contaminated ground. As the world’s most powerful adsorbent, it can cope with a wide range of contaminants.Different contaminants may be present in the same discharge and carbon may be used [...]
Human hair export is a Rs 200 crore business in India today. Of this, Gupta Enterprises, Chennai alone accounts for Rs 44 crore a year. “Hair that’s thrown out is waste, hair that is collected is money,” says Gupta.The waste hair is converted into wigs and toupees Gupta’s father started off in the late 1960s [...]
To create eco-awareness among students, Siruthuli, an organisation that works for the revival of water bodies in Coimbatore and promoting a clean city, has formed Siruthuli Eco Forum in 24 schools in the city of Coimbatore. The students of National Model School in Peelamedu, G.R. Damodaran School on Avanashi Road and Elgi Matriculation Higher Secondary [...]
Mrudula Saptarshi of Mumbai, “vermigoldinternational.com” was a crusader for separation of garbage at the household level. Segregation into wet/organic (kitchen) and dry/synthetic waste (plastic, glass, paper, metal). She began with vermiculture (using earthworms to convert garbage to compost) in her kitchen garden. She is now a consultant to many organisations. Vermigold International, her company, is [...]
Poonam Kasturi calls herself Compost Wali. On a unique mission, she wants ordinary Indians to feel empowered, make a ‘clean’ difference to the society, by converting waste into useful compost in a simple and cost effective manner. Her organic business venture Daily Dump offers different types of composters that convert the waste generated in one’s [...]
In urban slum areas without proper waste disposal and rubbish collection systems the build up of household waste is a huge problem. One of WaterAid’s projects in India has found a novel approach to tackle this dilemma and generate income. Their solution lies with worms. The community living in the Kalmanthai slum in Tiruchirapalli has [...]
Retired Mumbai industrialist R.T. Doshi uses the organic waste from his kitchen as soil and harvests about 5 kg of vegetables and fruits every day, enough for his family of 10. The science he uses is very simple. The top and bottom of a drum are cut off, then 12 holes of 8-10 cm diameter [...]
Pune’s doctor couple Nirmala and Hamir Ganla are safely recycling the waste generated from their 12-bed maternity home.They used the aerobic process to convert all bio-medical waste from their hospital–sanitary napkins, placentae, blood-soaked dressings–into manure which was as benign as ordinary soil and no pathogens were detected. Experimenting for safety, samples of treated hospital waste [...]
New Delhi’s Jitendra Pareek invested Rs 3 lakh to set up Eco Vision Industries, which uses over 26 tonnes of fly ash a day to produce fly ash bricks.The daily turnover was reported as 25000 Rs. Although expensive than baked clay bricks, flyash bricks have greater strength and thermal insulation, and afford considerable savings in [...]
The Tannery Industry: As of estimates made in 2002, India had more than 3000 tanneries with a total capacity of 700000 tonnes of hides and skins per year. The annual income from leather trade in India was about Rs 20000 crores. More than 90% of the tanneries were small or medium with a processing capacity [...]