Solid waste management in Kathmandu sucks. There’s no waste segregation and recycling. Everything gets sent to the landfill. Landslides or protests by the locals frequently cut off the city’s access to Sisdol landfill site and now Banchare Danda, 1.9 km west of Sisdol, in Nuwakot. Bulging blue, black, and white polythene bags of trash then line our riverbeds and roadsides. In the first week of August, I counted 21 huge piles of garbage in a 500-meter stretch of road from Gaushala to Old Baneshwor. The rest of the city too was, more or less, in the same state. 

Sanu Maiya Maharjan, a solid waste management expert, says composting is the only solution. She has been composting organic waste at home for over three decades, and says it’s fairly easy once you get the hang of it. But most people don’t want to put in the effort to learn to manage their waste. They want someone else to take care of it. “We must think of the laborers who handle our trash. Their work is especially difficult in the monsoon season,” she says. Not only do they get injured by needles and broken glass, they also face grave health issues. Often, they can’t afford medical treatment. As daily wage earners, their families suffer when they can’t work.   

“Our trash is creating problems for other people. We have to be mindful of that and be conscious of how we throw what we throw,” says Maharjan who has, for a long time, strived to create a sustainable lifestyle. She practices vermicomposting (using earthworms to convert biodegradable waste into organic manure), does rooftop vegetable gardening, and has installed a simple rainwater harvesting system at home. She wants her actions to have minimal impact on the environment. 

Apart from being a humane thing to do, composting could help you eat healthier and earn a little money as well. Maharjan uses the compost she makes in her vegetable garden, making her produce purely organic. She also routinely sells all the excess fertilizer she makes. “If you really want to compost, you can do it. Lack of time and space are just excuses for your unwillingness and indifference,” she says. 

Dhurba Acharya of Solid Waste Management Association of Nepal (SWMAN) says composting must be done at three levels: household, community, and central. Those who can and want to should compost at home but the local authorities must step in where that’s not possible. Kathmandu is congested. Many families rent small spaces. You find up to 30 families are living in a building, says Acharya. Composting, in such cases, becomes tricky because of space constraints. 

Laxmi Prasad Ghimire of Nepsemyak, a company that has been working in waste management for over 20 years, says the concept of ‘jutho’ also makes communal composting difficult. Many, he says, are disgusted by the idea of mixing other people’s kitchen waste with their own. 

“Household composting can minimize our solid waste problem. It’s not the complete solution though,” says Acharya. For that, the community and the government must make provisions for large-scale composting. But private companies don’t have the land required to compost organic waste. (There is an unused plot of land near Banchare Danda that they are considering.) 

Acharya says if people saw how composting could reduce trash volume at the landfill, they would be motivated to segregate as well. This would help increase the lifespan of the landfill as only 10-15 percent of the 1,200 tons of waste currently being generated daily would need to be dumped. Also, since dry waste won’t rot and stink, locals near the landfills wouldn’t object either. 

Kiran Shrestha of Action Waste Pvt. Ltd says composting is a skill that needs to be learned and honed. It can greatly reduce the trash volume in Kathmandu. But Shrestha isn’t hopeful many people will do it. Since the local government announced separate collections of dry and wet waste, Shrestha and his colleagues have been doing rounds of their collection areas, helping people segregate their trash. Despite weeks of information dissemination, many still mix dry and wet waste. “It’s not just unawareness but laziness too. People don’t want to do the bare minimum,” says Shrestha. 

Acharya adds that there was a time when private companies came up with all sorts of initiatives to get people to compost kitchen waste at home. From giving them discounts on monthly garbage collection fees to providing technical support, SWMAN tried to get them interested in composting. But valley residents would rather pay a little extra if it meant they could just toss out their trash instead of having to tackle it themselves. 

Household composting might not solve Kathmandu’s issues but it will prevent your home from smelling bad when garbage collection stops. (Locals at Banchare Danda have declared they will not allow Kathmandu’s waste to be dumped there from August 17.) If you want to compost but don’t know where to start, you can contact the Department of Environment. Maharjan says they will teach you how to compost. “You can visit or call. The department can even send someone to your home to show you how it’s done,” she says. 

Kheti Farm, a digital agri-food platform that connects farmers and consumers, sells compost bins that you can set up on your balcony or even your kitchen-corner. Each bin has a capacity of 110 liters and comes with a pair of gloves, a trowel, and a solution to mix with waste. Shiwani Goyal, customer care representative at Kheti Farm, says many people have bought these bins in the past six months. Kheti Farm has also instructed them on how to turn their waste into manure. “It will take about two months for the waste to turn into compost. All you have to do is put kitchen waste in the bin and add to it a few capfuls of the solution once or twice a week,” says Goyal. 

The compost bin, however, isn’t a dustbin. You can’t put cooked food, meat, paper and plastic in it. For good compost, your kitchen waste should have 40-60 percent moisture; monsoon vegetables have over 80 percent. Maharjan suggests air drying kitchen waste before putting it in the compost bin. Also, large leaves and slivers of vegetable peels should be cut up into small pieces before composting. “A person on an average generates 300 grams of waste in a day, out of which 65 percent is organic,” says Maharjan. If you compost that at home, you will have very little to throw out.