While the Indian city of Bengaluru produces over 5,000 tonnes of garbage every day, and the city administration has attempted to impose no-plastic and segregation-at-source rules strictly, there is no 100 per cent adherence. However, a juice cafe owner in the city is now proving that it is possible to go the zero-waste route.
Raja, a radio jockey, emcee, entrepreneur and self-proclaimed waste engineer runs the city's first zero-waste juice bar. The outlet has been drawing quite a buzz as Raja serves his special drinks in organic cups that are nothing but fruit shells and peels. This zero-waste cafe has completely done away with plastic and paper usage to promote sustainability.
"This is a 100 per cent zero-waste cafe. We have nothing that we throw out. We don’t use paper, plastic, carry bag, cups or straws since 2018. There is no dry waste at all. The only waste being generated is the fruit waste of which we do factory level segregation. We segregate the fruit waste at source into citrus, non-citrus."
"The citrus fruits are used to make bio-enzyme and the rest of it either gets composted or is used as cow feed. The seeds are used to make art-work, jewellery and rangolis. The whole idea was to repurpose everything that is thrown as waste" Raja told WION.