What is Anaerobic Composting

The Indian Government's Smart Cities Mission intends to develop citizen-friendly, sustainable cities. Despite its laudatory objective, such a top-down scheme, doesn't reflect any grassroots level work to address water and waste issues or promote energy efficiency/saving at city-scale in which citizens also become participatory change agents. Out of overall food produced in the world, one-third is wasted. It's a matter of global concern with economic, social and environmental implications. Every tonne of food waste diverted from landfills saves 1.9tonnes CO2e (Carbon dioxide equivalent). This action research pilot project is a climate change mitigation initiative to treat wet waste at source through demonstration and techno-economic feasibility involving Rajkot citizens as participatory change agents. While currently awareness about such environmental issues and its environment-friendly solutions among Rajkot citizens is comparatively low. There is a potential of mass adoption of such initiatives, supplemented with government incentives making cities smart while also reducing Greenhouse Gas emissions. This paper describes successes and lessons from this pilot.