Composting of flower waste by temples on the wane in Bengaluru

Lack of provisions for operations and management are some causes 

A few years ago, around 40 temples in the city had started composting flower and wet waste. Today, just a handful seem to be continuing with the practice, much to the chagrin of waste management experts.

Lack of supervision, provisions for operation and management, and incentives for those managing the composters are said to be main reasons for the failure.

Vasuki Iyengar, a waste management expert who had helped set up composters in most of the temples, also attributed the failure to lack of interest. “When the composters are given free of cost, it holds no value. Temple trusts also don’t factor in the labour and consumables such as cocopeat, which is required to keep the system going,” he said.

Bommanahalli MLA Satish Reddy had donated composters to over 10 temples falling under his constituency a few years ago. However, today, just around three to four temples continue to compost the flower waste. Rajini Bopaiah, member of HSR Citizens’ Forum, said that temples in HSR Layout were once seen as models earlier. “However, only a few are continuing with composting. People are not cooperating,” she said.

Though composting waste is most cost-effective for small and medium-sized temples, managements hesitate to take on additional responsibility, Mr. Iyengar said. Temple managements get drawn in by solutions such as making incense sticks or dyes out of waste flowers. However, they fail to understand that for such initiatives to be financially viable, they would require a large volume of flower waste.

The Shakthi Maha Ganapathi Temple in Kalyan Nagar was among the first temples in the city to start composting. Ashok Betraj, former trustee at the temple, said the potential of composting was evident right at the beginning. “We ensured devotees did not bring in any form of plastic into the temple. We invested in a plate bank for ‘annadana’ to avoid use of disposables. The pooja flowers and kitchen waste used to go into the composters. After the pandemic, the ‘annadana’ was stopped,” he said.

“Unless there is a mandate and a policy is in place, people will find reasons to not take up composting. Mandate and policy should, however, be followed up with enforcement. Only this can bring about changes”Shanthi TummalaExpert on waste management