one of them is father felix rebello a priest at st francis xaviers church in panvel there are others like harshad bansali from nerul who has made a business out of vermiculture and compost it is evident that no one has a solution so recycling waste is the only way out he said i sell a 40kg bag of compost at rs 240 which is rs 6 a kg composting make take some space but segregating is just about being careful she added i segregate my home waste so disposing it can be made easier said sandra miranda from vashi the mounting pile of garbage is not a pretty sight i grow fruit and vegetables on the roof of the church residents believe that the task is not easy but segregation and vermiculture may just be the only solutions in sight the idea of using compost as soil is something the civic body is entertaining too rebello takes time out of his schedule to talk to his parishioners every sunday and asks them to adopt a similar projects in their housing societies if the city did decide to go garbagefree not only will the city look better residents said it will also look much greener during the sanitation worker strike last month the city was struggling to deal with mounds of garbage on street corners she explained that several times people misinterpret segregating for composting it doesnt even need to be a civic project navi mumbai is growing everyday bansali explained that it only appears to be a difficult task to make compost the only way to combat this garbage menace is having a good segregation plan said kavita chhabria a resident of sanpada it recently cut down on over 65 of its expenses and has started replacing red soil with compost in flower gardens some residents believe that relying on the officials to pull up their socks may be asking for too much and it is time to be selfreliant even after officials negotiated with the workers and the strike was called off it took a week for the garbage to be picked up residents have been finding ways to recycle garbage and uses it as fertilizer for potted plants and garden vegetables the garbage is used productively and i can feed the homeless when needed he said but mounds of uncollected garbage are not something that was only seen during the strike every housing society has gardens and they need my product because it is cheap and i am ready to sell bansali said it has transformed from a town to a city the nmmc has been struggling to deal with the issue for the past few years and the recent strike showed chinks in its armour rebello makes compost of the garbage collected from his area and sells it to raise funds and maintain the church a bucket of garbage reduces to a few grams of fertilizer which is enough for a flower garden he added