Renowned environmentalist C. Srinivasan gave a very inspiring talk at Qualcomm, San Diego on June 3, 2015, about the various sustainable initiatives undertaken by him over the past two decades. As if the title of the talk “Don’t waste your garbage” wasn’t catchy enough, the talk was replete with various anectodal examples of how people react to the word garbage, how the handling of garbage is done in various places, and how garbage can be converted to gold (of course, metaphorically). Mr. Srinivasan explained how garbage should be viewed as a resource, with tremendous potential to generate revenue, provide permanent livelihood, and the processing of which can reduce the impact of environmental onslaught created by this garbage. The functioning of the Solid and Liquid Resource Management (SLRM) centers were described in detail, as to how each type of garbage, ahmm…., resource was segregated, and converted to compost, recyclables, and other lucrative initiatives. He left us with an appeal to support this model in various cities and towns in India, and if anyone/their friends are interested in starting this in their city/town, he would be happy to interact with them.

The talk was attended by around ten people, mostly Qualcomm employees, and I am sure the funny videos of the picky cows (that use the handpumps to drink water directly from the tap, instead of the water stagnated on the ground) , and the conscientious crow (that was putting the garbage from the ground to the waste basket) will remain in the memories of those who attended.

More details about Mr. Srinivasan can be found at our Saathi webpage. Some of you may have seen him on the Don’t Waste Your Garbage episode of a popular Indian show Satyameva Jayate (inset photo from the episode).

AID San Diego would be happy to connect anyone interested in supporting the project, or directly talking to Mr. C. Srinivasan to implement the SLRM model in their town/city. Please email us at sandiego@aidindia.org.