The ‘Compost Park’ concept

When I was doing my masters in Veterinary Public Health at All India Institute of Hygiene and Public Health (AIIH &PH), Kolkata, India, I got an opportunity to interact with the public health experts like, doctors, nurses, health educators, statisticians and even engineers.

Previously I thought civil engineer means a person who constructs buildings.

But when I met Prasad, an engineer from Tirupati my perception towards civil engineers changed into different way.

Prasad, who works as an engineer in Tirupati, a popular place in southern India, did masters in Engineering Public Health at AIIH &PH, Kolkata.

For his dissertation he took an interesting topic on solid waste management. I said interesting because, converting wastes like leaf litter, tree trimming, food peelings, waste food, old news papers and even bit plastic with the help of earth worms sounds interesting. After interacting with him I came to know about less known concept called Vermicompost and Compost Park.

The Compost Park concept

We can define composting of organic waste materials with the use of earthworms as Vermicomposting and the set up with a vermicompost yard, a biofertilizer unit and a plastic recycling unit can be termed as Compost Park.

As shown in the pictures construction of vermicompost unit and its maintenance needs less investment and less manpower.

The final product, vermicompost, is really eco friendly and can be used to maintain parks and gardens in cities and towns.

Interested public can use the vermicompost according to their necessity.

Small compost parks can be set up near market places, parks, education institutes, and hospitals.

Large compost parks can be set up in big towns and cities based on requirement. For this, awareness on the concept and active participation of public and encouragement from the policy makers and financial assistance from the government or any funding agency is very much necessary.

Recently set up Compost Park near Kottakuppam town, in southern India, with a financial assistance from the Asian Development Bank under the Tsunami Emergency Assistant Project (TEAP) is really a good example.

There are plenty of small things which make us to keep our environment clean. Let’s share those small information and make this planet a best place to live happily in an eco friendly way.