Meet Vani Murthy: The 60-Year-Old Homemaker Turned Waste Management, Change Maker

Vani Murthy, a 60-year-old homemaker from Bengaluru, has become an inspiration for youngsters to manage their waste in a green way by following simple rules of composting and recycling. Murthy started her green journey 15 years ago when she realized the problem of waste management in India. She decided to curtail her waste generation and change the way she had been managing the waste at home. Murthy took a pledge to ensure that nothing from the waste generated in her household would end up in landfills. She became known on social media as “Worm Rani” for her passion for composting. In this interview with NDTV, she encourages women to dive into what they love and follow their passion, and explains that through composting, she is paying the rent to the planet for living in it.

Murthy is also involved in the Solid Waste Management Round Table (SWMRT), which brings together like-minded citizens who are working in Bengaluru on the topic of waste management. They think waste is always associated with ‘not in my backyard’, and people think it is the government’s and municipality’s job to take care of the waste we all generate. But if we all start taking care of waste, whatever we generate, then there will be a huge environmental impact, which will lead to a good change.

Murthy emphasizes the importance of composting and waste management in today’s time, as there is a big impact on the ecosystem when we don’t take responsibility. Today, we are living in a time when single-use plastic is everywhere around us, and it is also one of the largest polluters on the planet. If we are mindful of what we use, how much waste we generate, how much we manage, and how waste is being decomposed, it will create a huge difference. We have to become sensitive about waste management and help reduce the amount of waste we generate and divert the maximum of our waste via recycling and composting.

Murthy is an inspiration to women of all ages, showing that age is not a barrier to starting something new and unusual. Her message to all women is to pick up something which is out of their comfort zone and to be passionately involved with things they love, and they will see that it will take them places.

Staff Reporter