Those shampoos and conditioners that I used to buy, I am no longer buying.” I feel so good that I am not using those chemicals anymore. About the many eco-friendly tips and sustainable options she suggests online, she says, “I learn from people, or I get motivated to give it a try and keep at it till I get it right. Over a period of time, you start looking at how you can raise your own bar, she says. Zero-waste life is not something you can give up, later on, it’s a life-long journey. It has taken her over 10 years to get where she is now. “When you are in this space and you meet people who are highly evolved and already doing a lot, it is very inspiring.” “Every time they say something nice, it motivates me to do something better,” she says. She is very happy with the connection she has formed and the engagement she gets from like-minded people. Vani likes sharing pieces from her life on Instagram. The target focus of the group is to hold the citizens accountable for their own waste get the citizens to say, “My waste is my responsibility,” she says. The SWMRT involves other parties in its schemes and plans - such as the citizens, the vendors and works alongside the BBMP, connecting and managing the flow of waste through different sectors. The SWMRT also went to court to and mandated the segregation of waste at source in Bengaluru city. “When you decentralise waste management, you put the onus on the citizen for segregation and to reduce the waste they generate,” Vani says. The main focus of the organisation is to decentralise waste management.
The SWMRT has organised several campaigns, such as Swacha Graha, 2 Bin 1 Bag, Trashonomics, etc. It was at a seminar conducted by Srinivasan back in 2007 on Solid Waste Management that the Solid Waste Management Round Table co-founded by Vani Murthy was formed. Even though her first attempt was a horrible failure, a visit to the landfill in Bengaluru forced her to swear that no more of her waste would be sent there. She met waste management expert C Srinivasan, also known as Vellore Srinivasan, at a workshop in Vellore and learned about composting. She was a part of the Wealth Out of Waste programme and not much later, she was going door-to-door giving bags for segregation and collection of wastes so that they could be recycled. She also involved the kids in her apartment building in collecting and organising recyclable wastes and Sunday campaigns, and weekly roadshows were organised. She was reluctant to meet new people and engage in a community, but that soon changed as she met more and more enthusiastic people who were in the same sphere as her. It all began when she joined the Resident Welfare Association after her kids grew up. “What I am today is completely opposite to what I was.” She calls it a paradigm shift and holds her sustainability-journey responsible for the changes that she is proud of. “I was a homemaker, a stay-at-home person in the real sense,” she says. Born in Bengaluru, she moved to Hyderabad and came back to Bengaluru after marriage. Growing up, Vani was a shy and quiet kid. You have to showcase things, people capture what they see more than what they hear.” Rather than mere words, Vani believes in the power of in-person demonstrations, which is why since the beginning of her journey, she rolled out several campaigns where she can demonstrate the simplicity of the practices herself: “I love doing demos.
With extensive videos on composting tips, instructions and other zero-waste hacks such as bio enzymes and zero-waste recipes, Vani Murthy has become a part of several households which have begun to adopt such sustainable practices in their lives. Vani is a major sustainable and zero-waste influencer with over a hundred thousand followers on Instagram. “That statistics sunk into me,” says Vani Murthy.
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