INDORE: Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Indore is processing around 1000 kg of kitchen and dry waste everyday inside its campus and has banned use of single-use plastic, as the institute aims to become a zero-waste and a net-zero-energy campus.
The institute has made the campus ‘a no single-use plastic zone’ replacing single-use plastic items in mess and canteens with wooden forks, spoons and paper plates.
IIM-I has set up a system of in-house collection, segregation and organic degradation of food/ kitchen waste in an area of 35,000 sqft after mixing and grinding the waste material in a thrasher.
The manure processed from the wet waste is used within the campus in organic garden spread across 5000 sq feet, fruit orchard and vegetable garden. The institute produces fruits, vegetables and herbs in horticulture cell — Sanjeevani.
IIM-I director professor Himanshu Rai said, “The institute aims to become a zero-waste campus in near future and has taken every initiative to reduce consumption of electricity and water.
We use kitchen waste collected from faculty residences, canteen, hostels and other places inside the campus to manufacture manure on the campus itself. No plastic bottles are being used on the campus and all community members use copper water bottles.”
“Taps in the institute have been reinstalled with special faucets which have helped in reducing water utilization in mess by 50 per cent. Institute also has an efficient rainwater harvesting system on the campus and rooftop solar panels have been installed on the buildings to save electricity,” said Rai.
