Every consumer makes two important choices that affect the amount of waste:
What products you choose to buy or use
At the point of purchase or use, as consumers you have the opportunity to consider a product, its packaging, how it is constructed, whether it can be reused or recycled, and whether it is made from recycled materials. By choosing recycled, recyclable or reusable products, you can extend the functional life of a product and divert it from the landfill.
Purchasing recycled products also helps by creating a market for the recycled material, "completing the loop." Consumer demand is a powerful factor affecting the waste stream, and your decisions make a huge difference.
How we choose to dispose of the product when finished with it.
Once a product has reached the end of its functional life, as consumers you decide how it will enter the waste stream. Reusing, recycling or composting waste materials is always the ideal option.
About US
Exnora International is a Non-Profit, Non-Political, Secular, Non-Governmental, Environmental Service Organisation. Exnora International is a wide spread environmental movement, focusing on mobilizing and empowering communities to participate in preserving nature and preventing environmental degradation, thereby improving the quality of life of the common man.
The focus has been on waste to wealth programs. Exnora firmly believes it is quite possible to develop different kinds of replicable models to suit different places and situations. The various prototypes developed by Exnora are indeed replicated everywhere today. The vision has been to promote sustainable human settlements, through the promotion of waste management as an income generating opportunity. Practices today by Civic Exnora's include Solid Waste Management, Liquid Waste Management, Rain Water Harvesting and Recycling among others. Participation by Civic Exnora's has been seen in all income groups. This is because member's contribution to financial expenses can be kept minimal. The extra income generated through sale of compost and recyclables will even cover the maintenance costs of the Civic Exnora.
The concept of CIVIC EXNORA was introduced first in Adyar area of Chennai in October 1988. The residents who generated garbage got together to collectively solve the problem of solid waste accumulation, by removing and relocating it, in an identified dumping place. A street beautifier was employed and given a tri-cycle to collect waste from door-to-door, all of which were funded by small subscriptions from the members in the community.
There are about 5,000 such Civic Exnoras in Chennai city and in the various Districts of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala and a few other states of the country, covering about 30,000 streets and settlements.
Each Civic Exnora functions with an expenditure of around Rs. 1500 per month- inclusive of wages to street beautifier and maintenance charges for the project. The Chennai City alone having 2000 Civic Exnoras would translate this Waste Management into a Rs. 30,00,000 turnover in the informal Solid Waste Management Sector per month and this would amount to a turnover of Rs. 3.6 Crores per annum.
The Waste Management of an area is under the purview of the local authority. Exnora has brought about the enactment of Municipal Solid Waste (Management and Handling) Rules 2000 through the Public Interest Litigation filed by Exnora in the Supreme Court. This has provided guidelines for municipal authorities to follow in waste management. Exnora has helped local authorities through consultation as well as partnership to manage Zero Waste Centers.
Exnora through its hierarchies go to streets and initiate them into Civic Exnoras, Civic Exnoras have certainly made a difference to the quality of human settlements and the living environment to the people present within its coverage. All these places are practicing composting, Solid Waste Management, Liquid Waste Management, Home Farming, Tree Planting, Energy Conservation, Waste Minimization, Rain Water Harvesting and Alternate Non Conventional Energy Sources.
Since the start, these practices have been replicated and implemented in many places. The replication and sustainability of the practices was ensured because
1. Communities were motivated first, their involvement was enlisted and they were encouraged to high levels of self-involvement.
2. Since the monetary contribution from communities could be ensured to be minimal, and on the contrary it was shown that a high level of waste management was indeed resource management, model households have generated incomes at the household level through recycling and reusing.
3. Conceptualization has helped in spreading the message and helping the communities to easily introduce major Zero Waste Management Concepts like
SoSoWaM
Source Solid Waste Management
DeSoWaM
DeCentralised Solid Waste Management
CeSoWaM
Centralised Solid Waste Management
Sky Farming
Various Innovative Composting Processes