send it out to farmers she saysthe kochi model will bengaluru take inspirationneighbouring kerala is a pioneer in sourcelevel composting but the problem in kochi was what to do with all the compost i developed a technology by which bio waste along with compost is used as soil for plants on road medians usually for the greening of medians everything is mined from the mountains or farmlands by using compost that is generated at homes in the city we prevent environmental damage furthermore every six months more compost needs to be added to the medians this ensures that all the compost generated in the city is constantly being used says dr cn manoj an environmental scientist and the man behind the successful project in three years kochi has managed to put over 1000 tonnes of waste from homes gardens and stadiums into its road medians to grow plants did you knowbengaluru generates nearly 5000 tonnes of waste of which more than 1800 tonnes are generated by bulk waste generators24hour composters the many costs a machine can cost between rs 8 lakh and rs 10 lakh it consumes a lot of electricity electricity costs can go as high as rs 30000 a month emits hazardous smoke does not actually compost produces biochar that is harmful when put into the soilhow to compost successfully according to poonam bir kasturi who runs a company that makes composting products there is no one right way to compost there are many methods but the most important requirement is spaceplanners need to allot a certain amount of space for composting in the longterm it is a winwin situation since you save electricity you keep garbage from going into landfills you have healthy soil no waste is burnt and you provide employment but no one wants to invest in open spaces she sayspoonam adds that there are five things that are required to ensure community success they are having an evangelist in the community who is a permanent person a house owner not a tenant a budget some amount of space housekeeping staff to do the composting people who actually enjoy composting what is composting composting is the breaking down of complex chemical molecules like carbohydrates cellulose fat protein lignin etc into simpler compounds monomersdimers such that either the monomers form food for the microbes or facilitate their growth the degradation of lignin is important for microbes to sustain as it protects plants from bacterial infection