About EarthCare Designs

EarthCare Designs is a Nasik-based organisation initiated by Abhivyakti Media for Development, a non-profit organisation that has been active in the field of development communication for the past 25 years. We envision EarthCare Designs as a socio-cultural, spiritual, and technologically innovative space. At ECD, we design products and technology that is viable for individuals, empowering for communities, and regenerative for the environment.  These designs conserve energy resources, build upon the wisdom of earth-based communities, and ensure healthy livelihoods. We prioritize human-scale efforts, which operate on free and abundant natural resources like solar and muscle energy as well as human creativity. At the heart of this enterprise is the development of leadership that will guide India's marginalised communities towards unity, justice and a reconnection between people and the natural world.

Why we have started Waste-Care Solutions?

Almost every city in India is struggling with solid waste management today, as is Nashik. Nashik generates around 450 tonnes of solid waste daily, most of which gets dumped into landfills. If this continues, the projected quantity of solid waste in 2020 will be 750 tonnes daily – a huge amount! As per the municipal body's estimates, nearly 40% of this waste is compostable, but the corporation's capacity to do so is only 3-5%. The result is unchecked dumping of mixed waste which makes recycling waste difficult and puts immense pressure on the limited dumping spaces at Vilholi and around Nashik city. EarthCare Designs believes that there is an urgent need to create alternative and decentralised solutions to this problem. The importance of involving the citizens of this city to participate in reducing and managing their waste cannot be over-emphasised. Hence, we have developed the WasteCare Composter to enable citizens to manage their waste and encourage the city to move towards decentralised solid waste management and a 'zero waste' future.
We have completed and launched 'WasteCare Composter', a composting unit in 2010 that aims to make Nashik a zero-waste city in the near future. Meant to be filled daily, these units compost the natural way, without any composing agents such as earthworms. They are light, hygienic, pest-free and easy to use.

Our Solution - Waste-Care !

Our approach has its philosophical underpinnings on the Gandhian concept of ‘swaraj’, meaning self-rule. The prevalent consumerist culture promotes management of household waste at a huge public cost. Our innovation is in designing a self-regulated mechanism as a first step to deal with household waste in making Nashik a zero-waste city. We have designed a ‘home composter unit’ for small households and large composters for apartment buildings and corporations. The composter turns waste into good quality compost for urban gardens and farms. We aim to provide composting units to diverse segments, from individual households to gated communities to hotels and industries.  Our 'Waste-Care Composter' turns bio-degradable waste into compost in 60 days through an aerobic process. Citizens of Nashik are motivated to join the waste-care movement by accepting a specially designed composter unit and regular visits by our team ensure a continuing dialogue with them for training and maintenance. Through this process, a family is able to recycle all their kitchen and garden waste and generate about 10 kg of compost every month, and earn about Rs. 1500/- a year, thus taking a critical step towards ‘swaraj’ in managing waste at the source itself! This is part of our zero-waste vision to motivate families in becoming self-reliant citizens instead of depending on external agencies to manage their waste.