St. Teresa

Dr. Nirmala Padmanabhan, the Dean of Extension and Incubation at St. Teresa's College, discusses her experience in the sanitation sector. She talks about the college's initiatives to promote alternatives to plastic carry bags and reduce single-use plastics. They have also worked with other educational institutions to raise awareness and provide resources for sustainable practices. The college has been successful in reducing a significant amount of single-use plastics. They have also addressed the issue of tailoring waste and found solutions for its proper disposal. Overall, their efforts focus on bridging the gap between awareness and action in sustainable waste management. Okay. Yeah. It's very precise. Hello. That'll be very helpful. Thank you so much. Okay. All right. Then I'll just go ahead with a few questions, and if at any time you feel uncomfortable or anything, please just let me know. Okay. Yeah? All right. Okay. Ma'am, can I have your full name? I'm Dr. Nirmala Padmanabhan. All right. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Are you comfortable sharing your age? Sharing? Your age. Yeah. I'm 50 years old. Fifty-nine? Yeah. All right. Thank you. The organization, is it like St. Teresa's College itself? Yes. It is St. Teresa's College Autonomous. It is located in Ernakulam, Kerala. Perfect. Thank you so much. And Dean of Extension and Incubation, St. Teresa's College. Dean. All right. Dean of Extension and Incubation. Yeah. Got it. Thank you. And can you tell me a little bit about your years of experience in the sanitation sector and the cleanliness sector? Okay. Actually, we start... We have a nature club in this college, which is called the Bhoomitra Sena Club, which is part of the Department of Environment and Climate Change Government of Kerala, established that. And we've been functioning from 2010 onwards. But it was an assorted list of activities. But we started focusing on waste in... But concentrated focus on waste from 2010, 2015, 2016, beginning. Oh, okay. Huh? Oh, no, no. I'm just... Yeah. All right. Thank you so much. And the reason was we had... And actually, I had done a research project funded by the World Bank on solid waste management, solid waste in Kerala. We had done waste for four villages, rural villages. And what we did, actually, I did the waste audit. And what we found was a significant amount of plastic waste, similar to developed countries, was being generated in Kerala. Okay. And it was not being... There were no visible symptoms in rural areas, because either they would be burnt along with the leaves, or they would be... We have a lot of backwaters. And this is either dumped into the backwaters. So, you will not find, like in urban cities where you find waste littering the streets, you will not find much of waste littering the... But obviously, there was a big issue in the rural areas. And so, then we decided that rather than just putting it as a research, we will take some action. And so, we started the first, probably the first social entrepreneurship unit in a higher educational institution in Kerala. And those days, entrepreneurship had not exactly taken off so much. So, we had started it off as a society, charitable society, Society of Terrarians for Environment Protection. And there, the objective was that we would design and manufacture and promote alternatives to plastic carry bags. We took one component, because quite a few of the... This was the carry bags in rural areas. So, we thought we promote alternatives to plastic carry bags, and follow the first principle of waste management, that is a reduction. Create what you really don't need. True, true. So, we designed very eco... Very, very attractive. I'll send you the video. You can have a design, very attractive, eco-friendly alternatives, like bags, strawberry bags, etc. And taught self-help groups to manufacture them. Oh, I see. Women self-help groups. Okay. Practically all over Kerala. And we were the master... Actually, we were the master faculty to government of Kerala on alternatives to plastic carry bags. I understand. Okay. And we used to go and train these women self-help groups all over Kerala. And that is when we realized that there is gender in bags also. Okay. This strawberry shapes, this cute... And they're not exactly very, you know, with the males, they are not very comfortable with feminine-looking things. So, we also designed gender-neutral rectangle, squarish kind of bags. And to make these bags, we picked up tailoring waste. Oh, okay. Okay? Very innovative. So, but see, sometimes in the inside of the... You won't get big... If you get big material, you get inside. But otherwise, at least the outer, very beautiful, the outer parts were made from tailoring waste. So, we started upcycling tailoring waste, though the original objective was reduction of carry bags. Okay. Got it. And then we also, to make these, we used to employ certain women. So, see, we started giving some livelihood. It became a livelihood generation for very few, whoever we were dealing with. Then, two years later, we realized that based on our experience, we expanded our scope to include even single-use cutlery and things like that. Till now, we were focusing only on carry bags. Understood. So, there, till now, it was done by a social entrepreneurship unit. Now, our nature club also, we work in sync, all of us together. The nature club brought out a green protocol where we promoted that we had a green protocol for the college per se, where we encourage our students to not only say no to carry bags, but also say no to paper plates, plastic plates, thermocol plates, glasses, spoons, ice cream and things like that. That is called, so we have these, we designed a green protocol poster, which was stuck all over the campus. And so, we were doing that. Okay. Understood. Then, we were promoting that for quite some time. In 2019, after a few years of experience, we realized that one educational institution per se cannot, there's a limit to what we can do. At second, we had also, see, always we try to integrate our research with this also. We did a research project, action research project with a research scholar from Max Planck University, Germany, where we had assessed the environmental attitudes and behaviors of about 3,000 adolescent school students in Kerala. Most of the, you know, the actions go towards promoting awareness. And then, what we realized is everybody is aware of the environmental impact of solid waste and inefficient solid waste and the principles, reduce, reuse. But what happens is it doesn't translate into action. So, there's a wide gap between awareness and action. So, we thought, okay, based on these two, we worked with the corporation. Thus, we worked with the corporation to municipal corporation. We started a project called You Can Heal, where we brought in about, all tried to open many educational institutions to promote and say no to single-use plastics. And that is currently ongoing on. So, we have about, together we're able to reduce, we are quantifying it also. We were able to reduce nearly 49,000 something single-use plastics. Ma'am, I think I missed you for a second in the middle. After you mentioned that it is still ongoing project, how many schools are a part of it? About 22 educational institutions have joined. And the last one year, it's not an easy thing. It's quite tough. But last one year, some of the active institutions together have reduced around, we're quantifying it also, reduced around 49,000 single-use plastics. Oh, that's amazing. Okay. Because we keep on, we have innovative challenges. Like, if you have a festival, if you have your own Freshers' Day or in campus you have a Freshers', you have this, you might need some 3,000 cups. 3,000 cups we don't have. We have a Bring Your Own Cup challenge. We tell the girls, bring your own cup. Okay. So that way we, and then we quantify it, all functions in our campus, we try to use only reusable plates. Then we also conducted one marriage of one of our teachers, thus using green protocol. Then we are trying to promote it in other educational institutions. What we understand is many are not aware of it. Then we sensitize them. Even if they are aware, they don't know what alternatives. So we have prepared a list of what alternatives are available. And we share it with them. We say this and this is available here. Arachnid leaves are here. Edible plates are more expensive. They are available here. If you want to offer a public function, you want to rent steel glasses, this is available here. You want to rent, you know, glass glasses, these are available here. So all the alternatives we have and we share that information so that we can hand-hold other institutions also. Only if you give alternatives, they can actually implement it. True. True. Tell me. I'm just saying a lot of people sometimes also have the intention, but it's also difficult to find these resources, right? Yeah. It's great that you have a curated list, ma'am. Yeah. And we work with the local government. And then, meanwhile, what was happening was we were continuing with our bag production and training this. And when we used to pick up the – I forgot to say one thing. My colleague actually prompted me also. We had made tutorials, videos of how you can make these attractive bags, and these were uploaded in the Kerala government site. Our idea was, okay, we'll share this to anybody, anybody wants to. You can upcycle your own son's T-shirt or uniform, which nobody wants. Uniform and all, now nobody wants. Old uniform. Or your curtains. So, all these video tutorials on how to make attractive bags were all uploaded on Kerala government sites for public access. Understood. Okay. Now, we were continuing those bag production, and then what happened was when we pick up tailoring ways, we can only use – we can't tell the tailors, you give us only the big pieces, small pieces we can't take. They don't have the time to sort out like that. They give everything. And then the small pieces were always a challenge for us. So, we did a study on what the tailors are doing with these, and we found that they're either burning it, the excess tailoring waste, or sending it to the landfill and it's getting dumped there. And so, we decided that we will have a solution for small pieces of tailoring waste also. And there, the problem was we are an educational institution. We can't go around running one entrepreneurship after the other. Entrepreneurship is a tough proposition. True. Requires full time. So, then we adopted an incubating approach, and it is our incubating. We have a business incubation center in the college, and it is our incubating that is now upcycling these tailoring waste into soft toys. They collect it, sanitize it, shred it, and they upcycle it into soft toys. Okay. And we are going in for BIS licensing right now. We have set up a production unit. We are collecting from around. Because we have not taken the BIS license, we have not gone into full scale commercial production of toys, but we are producing small things like beds. We have already supplied some 200 beds or something like that. Some other products which don't need licensing, we have already produced. We are going in for BIS licensing. And that is the Bhoomi Women's Collective, which is around 15 women. And we have been working now for, now it took us nearly three years to perfect the toys because toys initially we were cutting, shredding, and cutting it and stuffing it, washing it, collecting it, washing it, drying it, and then cutting it through and stuffing it. Then the toys were lumpy and heavy. Then we identified a machine which will convert the, see, it is not like ordinary material. Tailoring waste is assorted size, assorted type. Correct. So, we need a machine which will convert it back into fluffy. So, we got a machine designed. And now we have perfected that and the toys are fluffy and they are very soft and nice. And then now we are going to, planning to go in for commercial production. That is the story so far. That sounds lovely. It also sounds like a lot of work. I'm really glad that there are people like you who are taking this up. Thank you. Awesome. I mean, this covers a lot of questions I had. But I'll just, if you allow me, can I ask you a few more? Yeah, yeah. I share a video which we did that sums up all the notes. Okay. Now tell me. So, I know you started with doing research in the sector, right? So, what sort of prompted you to even take that up? Because a lot of people do not generally do sanitation research. So, I mean, what prompted you for this? What prompted me in the sense was it was pure coincidence because I studied in Center for Development Studies, which is a JNU. So, there was this Kerala government KLGSPP, that is Kerala Local Government Service Delivery Project. So, that project, they were calling for various others. And Kochi always had a, I'm in Kochi. And I plan to be, my permanent residence is Kochi. We always have a solid-based issue in efficient management. So, whatever we do, Kerala has already, you know, Kerala has attained a lot of progress on all other health or education of this. But the main problem we are facing now is environmental issues. And so, that really needs to be addressed. And see, another thing is marine litter in Kerala has a very significant, because we have around 540 kilometers of coastline. So, any plastic that we dispose of indiscriminately will end up in the oceans. It's a direct charge. True, true. And second, quite frequently, we are having fires in the landscape. Okay. And that last, two years ago, the fire in the landfill, it was burning for nearly 14, 12 to 14 days. And they couldn't control it because there were mountains of plastic. So, all this, and Kerala has high incidence of this. I'm also living here. My children are living here. So, we have to do something about it. Understood. And I forgot to mention one thing. This step and this green initiative was selected as one of the finalists for the Green Gown Awards International. I'll forward that also to you. By the UNEP and conducted by the Alliance Global. Oh, please do, please do. And congratulations. Yeah, thank you. It was done last year. My team member is prompting me from there. I forgot all that. It's good to have her with us as well. Yeah. Yeah. Perfect. Thank you so much for that. I also wanted to understand that since you've been working in the sector for, say, about, like, you know, 10 to 14 years now, what is your perception or understanding about the sector been like? And also, how have you seen the challenges evolve? About the? About the? Sector. About the sanitation sector, about the cleanliness, environment, all of that. You see, really, we really need policy approaches also. I was very happy when the 2016 rules of multi-layer plastic was banned because that's always a challenge, been a challenge for us. Six months down the lane, that ban was repealed. Yeah. Okay. So, one is we need social engineering. We need the people to come together. We really need to address solid waste management. We need scientific solutions. Yes. And the solutions that apply to the waste may not apply here because our waste is very high. The study, research study I did was we measured even the calorific content and everything. We have a high content of waste moisture. So, the kind of waste management techniques that, you know, the energy, waste to energy, we need a mix of both decentralized and centralized waste management as a policy. So, we need both. Okay. So, wherever possible, let's do it at the central. But even at the decentralized level, I think we need a business approach, business model approach because we need. I always used to think many people start decentralized and fail because they don't know how to do it. It's not easy. It's quite a tough decentralized waste management unless you really know it. It's very tough. You can't just give a biogas or something to them and just tell them you do it or you have a composting system and tell them unless you have huge grounds which nobody has now in Kerala. So, what you need to do is you need to have a business model approach where people will come and do it for you at a certain minimum price. People may be happy to give that and they also get very solid quality organic waste also. So, that is one thing. So, you need business models in waste management. Second is you really need both policy and social engineering to promote the first principle of reduction. We are not giving importance to that at the national level or many other levels. I think we are not giving importance to the reduction. Because we hardly hear about – we only hear about the sachai ladies or the daily ladies segregating and taking it away. But then what happens after that? Correct. You cannot recycle it more than a few times. And it is beyond certain levels. I've been to all these plastic recycling units. It's very difficult to recycle unless it's absolutely clean and it is very difficult to get it in that condition. So, most of them are either used as RDF or refuse driven fuels or in cement clings or whatever it is. Or they get burned openly. So, we need to really promote the first principle of waste management, that is a reduction. Don't create what you don't need. We need a behavioral change. Absolutely. Absolutely. Awesome. I think all the film stars, all the people, peer pressure, people who have a peer influence should be brought in. Just like how the national government, they did for the toilet thing, no? Right. Divya Balan and all those people. Yes. For the rest of India, yes, that is very critical. But there is always a front runner in many things. Now that the toilet, this is addressed, I think the whole of India now needs to focus on reduction for which such peer campaigns and peer influencers, social influencers need to be brought in to show that this is accepted behavior. That is very much needed. True, true. I completely agree with you on that. Because SBM is a good initiative, but just sweeping and cleaning up a place will not help unless you can be sure that it will not be dirtyed up again. Correct. It has to be like a complete ecosystem approach. Awesome. Can I ask you to share a memorable anecdote or two from throughout this experience? One I can tell you is when we first went to the panchayat to do the waste audit, no? The panchayat president told me, madam, your city has got a waste, solid issue. We have no issue in the village. He said, you don't come and create an issue here. Okay. I said, we are not here to create an issue. We are here because we would like to help you before the issue becomes insurmountable. That one village. I won't name the village. Then we did the waste audit there, and the weekly waste generation there was 35 tons. Oh, okay. Because Kerala has a very high density of population. Here the village is not like a North Indian village. Even in a village, you have about 20,000 people. And there was about 35,000 tons of waste management there, and about 10% of it was plastic. 10 to 11%, which is similar to that of developed countries. And nothing was visible. That is a human. He very genuinely believed that they did not have an issue at all. And they had no system whatsoever for waste management. See, village organic waste, maybe it is not an issue because everyone will have at least a little bit of land. Even in a village, plastic waste, sanitary waste, everything is a big issue. And here everyone is using sanitary napkins. But then that is not visible because the bulbs. I have seen all the bulbs, everything being dumped into the backwaters. The whole of the village, everything is going into the backwaters. And I have seen all this, the carry bags, everything was not an issue because they would just sweep up the dried leaves, plastic, paper, everything together and burn it once a week and there is no issue. Quick fix. Quick fix. Another was very interesting, even despite Kerala being very literate. In other words, this person, I used to go and tell them, please do not burn plastic because it will cause cancer and all that. But that person told me, no, no, no, no, it will not be an issue. I just shut the door and I stay inside and burn plastic. I think the best people are the small children. They understand better. Another interesting fact was, one experiment we did was, we took all the, in my own colony, as a part of a college activity itself, we took all these kids, the LKG, Wafa standard wala and took them to all the houses. Told them, please tell all the people, say no to carry bags. And they asked why. I said, see, it is a simple thing only. I said, if you burn it, it will cause disease. And second, if you put it in the mud, what happens? When you dig a hole, you put the plastic and you pour water. Will it go down? No. Then you get water. So, these two things were very easily achieved by them. They are just LKG and standard students. They were so serious. They went from house to house and they were telling, do not burn plastic. It will cause, do not, so say no to carry bags. That was the main thing that they were saying. Okay. So, I think the best ambassadors would be school children, scholars. And please, another suggestion is, please let us not stop putting, you know, awareness sessions in the text and say we have taught them. No. Don't just teach it and go back. Have action projects on which you give marks. Now, if you give marks to students, the parents in India are crazy. They will do anything for children's marks. True, true. So, if you give an action project to them to either use, give photos of them using eco-friendly alternatives or segregating their waste or things like that and give credits and marks on the basis of that, 100% children will do it. And if they don't do it, the parents will do it for them. So, this is the only, I think, so the one way out for India too. This is a future that we should recommend to these. So, please include that as a recommendation. I will. I will definitely. Okay. One is, please include it as action projects, not just lessons in the class. Okay. Basic reduction and the segregation, please include it as action projects for class one onwards. Not the preschool, if possible. They are the ones, the habit is set, then it will go to the, yes. Very difficult to convince elders. That is one suggestion. Second suggestion is we really need, like the toilet campaign, we need peer social influencers talking about reduction. So, I have noted both of them down. And thank you so much for that. Just a last request. If you have any further impact numbers, like the 49,001 or like, you know, the awards that you mentioned, if you could just share that with me on WhatsApp. Yeah. Yeah? Yeah. So, that is all. Thank you so much for that. The awards, the basic awards, I think we have every year, practically, we have the best nature club in Kerala. So, I think all that, I'll ask my team member to send it to you. Sure. The rest, I'll send a link about the presentation we did that is some of the stories and the pictures also. Perfect. Perfect. Well, I actually wanted to ask you one more thing. Since you work with this women's SFG, how did you go about setting it up? Like, any challenges there? How did you convince women? No, challenges are there because women, see, on entrepreneurship, when we talk about the social entrepreneurship also, ensuring a sustainable income to the women's self-help groups is not easy. Because, you know, alternatives are expensive. True. So, actually, I wanted to try a different model, but it didn't work out. Maybe in the Indian context, it could work out also. Because my idea was if we train these Kudumbashree and other people, you know, in each village, if there is one team who are into making such alternatives, people can give. See, some people might be hesitant to use other people's clothes or things like that. So, if I have my son's uniform or my old curtains, I can give it to the self-help group and they can stitch bags, very attractive bags, and give it back to me. I don't mind using my own, isn't it? True, true. Understood. That was another thing we tried, but then, unfortunately, people don't have the time and the energy to go about it. Understood. Yeah, thank you so much for sharing all of these very insightful stories and your journey so far has been inspiring. So, thank you so much for also taking the time, ma'am. Thank you. Bye. So, I'll share the video and I'll get a list of the awards that we have gone on. So, I'll share. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you. Bye. Bye.