The Indian temple has come to represent so much more than a place of worship for Hindus. For centuries, temples have filled a variety of roles, from places of education and knowledge, charities for the poor and drivers of economy, especially in smaller towns. Some of the country’s richest and most well-organised institutions are temples, some of which see over 1 lakh people entering them on busier days. Tirupati’s Tirumala temple has a meal donation initiative that feeds over 2 lakh devotees on a daily basis free of charge.
But the mammoth financial and religious institutions these temples might be, such endeavours don’t come without costs. Hinduism is a religion of many elaborate ceremonies, rituals and traditions, many of which involve decorating idols with flowers, fruits and food. Practically every aspect of Hindu religious culture centres around these practices of offering such items to the gods themselves, or distributing them among the devotees. A study of the Mansa Devi and Chandi Devi Temples in Haridwar showed that on a regular day of operation, each of the temples generated about 200 kilos of waste, half of which was organic matter. These numbers are dwarfed by the quantities generated on days of popular festivals like Chaitra Purnima and Mesh Sankranti, when the waste would increase by almost ten times.
A large quantity of this waste consists of flowers used in religious ceremonies, as well as fruits, peels, grain, coconut shells, prasada, among other things. Normally, this sort of waste would find its way into a landfill or worse, in a river. But fortunately, every last one of those items is organic matter, and all organic matter is convertible.
The Ragigudda Temple in Bangalore had been facing the problems of any temple located in an urban centre: too many devotees, which meant too much waste. What were they going to do?
It was Vennar Organic Fertilizer that gave them a solution.
The Ragigudda temple purchased an organic waste convertor (OWC) from Vennar Organic Fertilizer, and the first thing they did was segregate all their waste. Collecting all the organic waste, they used the OWC to convert old flowers, food material and coconuts into a dry, odourless fertiliser. Soon enough, the temple was producing more fertiliser than they knew what to do with. Their idea? Store all the unused fertiliser in bags and sell them for Rs. 20/kg. Soon enough, not only was the Ragigudda Temple converting all their organic waste into fertiliser, but they were managing to sell off all of it at an affordable price.
Not long after, the Rajarajeshwari Temple in the city began to see the benefits of this system. Soon enough, they too had bought an OWC from Vennar and were converting and selling their organic waste.
This system isn’t exactly new. For years temples have been looking for different ways to make use of all the tonnes of waste they generate daily, and they’ve found solutions in waste convertors, vermicomposting, as well as regular composting. From temples in Mumbai to New Delhi to Indore, people all around the country have begun not just to understand the benefits of waste management, but to take an active role in making a difference.
Temples are the most sacred places of worship for Hindus, and that means it isn’t enough that they simply represent the Gods and preach Their immortal wisdom to the people. Their lofty position in the public’s eyes makes it more important than anything else for our religious institutions to embody the paragons of virtue and worldliness that they worship. Perhaps then, out of that freshly tilled and fertilised earth we might emerge like a germinated seed, renewed and more confident of the future.
