Waste Is Nothing

I know that the title appears to be a straight lift from the Samsung catch line. Let me be candid in admitting that it is purely intentional. I did not find a better one either. There is nothing which could be called WASTE in absolute terms. What made me to comment thus! I have learnt long ago that cattle excreta could be used in various ways, one among them being the production of Gobar gas. Then came to my knowledge that the waste that we through daily as rubbish and that the "chettabbai"(waste collector, shall I say!) religiously collects it and dumps it at a centralised location where it is processed for generating power. Interesting isn't it? Then there is an interesting article in Business Standard which inspired me to write this post. So much of history & geography involved in this one. Urine consists of a lot of inorganic salts, which produce gases which cause odour only when mixed with water. On the other hand, when urine is oxidised, it also gives that stinking smell. This is where the technology called "Zerodor" devised by the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi comes into picture. Urine would be collected through a tank placed underground, harvested and used as liquid fertiliser two to three metres below the ground on a five-acre field on campus, said Mr. Vijayaraghavan Chariar, Director, IIT(Delhi), who can talk animatedly about this human waste and how its poor treatment alone has led to sanitation problems.The entire processing could be done much cost effectively by using this low cost product at the public urinals which needs to be replaced only once in two years. Easing in public places may come down once this is implemented in Sulabh complexes, where people could as well be paid for easing in the Zerodar installed urinals as an added incentive. But then we have another problem, where people just go inside the sulabh complex a number of times to claim this money without actually contributing to the liquid fertilizer. A wilder imagination, of course!
The news is interesting as it proves that there is nothing which could be called absolute waste in this universe, except, of course, gossip! Matter can be neither created nor destroyed/wasted, isn't it? I only wish that the use of Zerodar would reduce stink in open public places.