Wealth from Kitchen Waste

Published on 02/06/2011

First Update 28/03/2017

Poonam Kasturi calls herself Compost Wali. On a unique mission, she wants ordinary Indians to feel empowered, make a ‘clean’ difference to the society, by converting waste into useful compost in a simple and cost effective manner.

Her organic business venture Daily Dump offers different types of composters that convert the waste generated in one’s  kitchen into compost. If the customers do not require the compost, it can be sold back to Daily Dump.

What began as a small venture with family members and potters, three years ago, Daily dump is set to treble its turnover to Rs 36,00,000 (Rs 3.6 million) this year. Today, the company has about 4,500 dedicated customers in Bangalore who use the profitable composters.

The response has been encouraging and the company has steadily grown over the past 3 years. In the first year, Daily Dump made a turnover of Rs 200,000, which increased to 12,00,000 (Rs 1.2 million) last year.

Poonam says home waste generated in one’s kitchen is 50-70 per cent organic, but urban India has still not found an effective way to dispose this waste, which can actually be churned back into the system by converting it into useful organic manure.

“Keeping this waste off the streets will be the biggest challenge that civic authorities across every city will face. If we can convert this into compost, it can reduce the mess on the streets by 60 per cent, that’s a big impact,” Poonam points out.

The Daily Dump design is available to anyone who is interested, the designs are protected by a creative commons license and the cloning approach allows anyone to use these designs. “I plan to support every person who is brave enough to clone this in every possible manner,” says Poonam.

Poonam Kasturi shares her experiences of  ‘a great ride, tough but very fulfilling’ of converting household waste into wealth and how her products can make a far reaching impact in a country like India.