Rather than school students, who she finds too young to impact in her field, she finds happiness in inspiring college kids and has carried out various seminars and workshops online, especially with Delhi University students. “They have taken up a few of the practices that I have been talking about - right from saying no to all single-use plastic to using non-chemical cleaners at home, to composting, to growing food, to rearing butterflies” gushes the changemaker. “Around 70% of my followers are below 30 years of age and it is a boon to me because that is the generation I want to impact,” she says. She completely transformed how she managed waste, got involved in several related projects in the city, and finally turned towards social media. It even went to court and mandated waste segregation at the source in Bengaluru. She learned composting from wet management expert C Srinivasan at a Vellore workshop and became a founding member of the Solid Waste Management Roundtable (SWMRT) Bengaluru that puts the onus of waste management on the citizens. She is also a member of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), eats what she grows, and practices water conservation. She organised Sunday campaigns and weekly roadshows and became part of the Wealth out of Waste programme. She joined her Resident Welfare Association and led a young army of kids practicing waste management. But around that time, she encountered trash on a grand scale, and it moved her to do things differently. Till the age of 40-45, Vani Murthy lived as a homemaker and never thought of breaking out of her comfort zone. Vani Murthy's take on waste changed with her visit to the Mavallipura landfill (Photo: A CHANGEMAKER Whenever the discussion turns towards responsible ways of handling waste or waste segregation, many often distance themselves as they believe it is the responsibility of the municipality. “So, when three resources - air, soil and water - gets polluted, you know that your kitchen waste does not belong to the landfill,” Murthy adds. “There is a dark fluid that runs off these landfills called leachate and this contaminates not just the soil but also the groundwater,” she says. The landfill is compacted and as the wet waste rots, it produces methane, one of the top greenhouse gases contributing to global warming,” says Murthy.īut it is not just the air that gets polluted. “But when it leaves your home and ends up in the landfill, this resource gets trapped. Wet waste comprises 60% of our household waste and is a great resource that belongs to the soil, not to the landfill. “Composting is an empowering choice you make only with the awareness of what your wet waste does to the environment,” she adds.