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From collection to segregation, our team from the nearby villages removes waste by hand daily. For 6 years, our team has been tirelessly conducting clean-up drives, collecting waste door-to-door, leading villages, restaurants, and shops to segregate at source, and educating anyone and everyone who engages with us to embrace a ZERO Waste way of living.
Our initiatives in and around the hills of Darjeeling have limited waste dumping, revived rivers, ensured waste segregation at source, community composting, and even created India’s first zero-waste village. Through these efforts, we have offset 300 tons of waste from reaching landfills and local rivers each year. That's just about the weight of 85 elephants put together! Now, after years of tackling this climate crisis, we’ve realized that to alleviate the enormous pressure on our environmental ecosystem, we need to change the perception of waste. Waste needs to be seen as an opportunity, where it can be converted into a meaningful resource for the local community in which it is found.
Our team of passionate earth crusaders is leading this charge and establishing a Waste Innovation Center (WIC) at Tieedi. This 6-floor decentralized waste-management institution will be managed along with local village folk to serve as an example of an efficient waste management system that promotes a circular economy. The center will house a processing unit, learning center, Zero Waste Store & Cafe. Through it and our initiatives, we aim to boost local employment, generate clean energy, improve health and sanitation, limit pollution, and develop everyday Zero-Waste solutions, ensuring not a shred of waste reachers our rivers or landfills. It will also focus on spreading awareness and knowledge to the wider community and world, to ensure the Zero-Waste Andolan reaches beyond our hill town, enabling us to create a waste-free world.
We need your support to amplify our Zero Waste initiatives. Over the next 6 months, we will :
- Organize Clean Up Drives to remove untreated waste from surrounding natural systems i.e. Air, Water, Soil
- Develop & install waste-free solutions for individuals, tourists, and communities. Products will include Mull Batta (home composter), Mull Dhwang (Community Waste Collection Drum), Sustainable Menstrual Products, etc.
- Invest in machinery like bailing machines and plastic processing machines to improve waste processing efficiency by 80%. This will ensure we manage 4 tons of waste each month from villages, households, and shops.
- Support the ongoing construction of the Wate Innovation Center ground and first floors.
- Increase the Zero Waste Movement by a 0.5-kilometer radius, assisting an additional 5 villages, 75 shops, 100 households, and 3 schools to go Zero-Waste.
Here's how we will be utilizing the funds to eliminate waste in our communities.
Links of the machines we are looking to procure: Bailing Machine & Plastic Processing MachinesFor more details or in-kind support, you can email us at tieediforestgarden@gmail.com
