Mumbai Garbage dumps are not a pleasant sight. Rotting vegetables, food leftovers, meat and bones, plastic, paper, glass, cloth, one doesn't want to go near at all. Yet, all of this comes everyday from millions of our homes and commercial establishments.

The problem of garbage disposal has assumed such gargantuan proportions that civic authorities alone cannot tackle the volume of garbage discarded. Today, it threatens the environment, our health and portends civic unrest.

It is in these concerns, that visionaries like Mrs. Dharmadhikari have managed to make a difference. Mrs. Jayashree Dharmadhikari a teacher at the Chogale, High School Borivali (east), Mumbai, was trained under the Intel Teach Program. Empowered with her new found knowledge, she pioneered a futuristic project on "Wet Garbage Management", with students from her school.

Her work has made her a paradigm, on how technology helps not only in enhancing teaching and learning but also in successfully dealing with social issues.

In 2007, Intel® Teach had organized a training in Malad, Mumbai. Mrs. Jayashree Dharmadhikari was an outstanding participant and drew the attention of the Intel Teach Team for further training and guidance.

After her training she was keen to implement project based learning in her classes in school and encouraged the students to take up a project on "Wet Garbage Management".

She divided the students into groups and their first step was to do intensive research on the topic from the internet. Next, the students undertook a survey on the problems of waste management by asking friends and neighbors in their colonies to fill up a questionnaire which they had designed on the computer.

Their results were most disturbing. While in 2008, Mumbai would be generating about 9,000 tonnes of garbage, and every nuclear family about 4-5 kilos of garbage every day, only 0.5% of its people were aware or dealing with the problem of managing the waste.

The biggest problem with this mammoth amount of garbage was finding ways for disposing it off.

What were once dumping grounds around Mumbai, have today become resettlement colonies because of increase in population. For people settled there, these dumping grounds have become very hazardous to health. Paucity of space in the city had also led to there being very, very few low lying areas, close enough to the city to dump the garbage.

The garbage was now overflowing the city and threatening its people as an eyesore, an ominous weapon for the serious, deadly epidemics it could cause. The research was scary and clearly asked for some action to be taken.

To their amazement, the students found that the answer to their problem was actually very easy. By ensuring that households have absolutely no wet garbage to give to the garbage collector each morning, one would have already addressed a major chunk of the problem. Instead, this wet garbage could be used effectively.

It could nourish flower beds and pots, and kitchen gardens. Papayas, pomegranates, coconuts, sugarcane, betel nuts, roses, lotuses, ferns, house plants, leafy vegetables, tomatoes and chilies could all be grown healthily in treated wet household waste.

Using no soil whatsoever, and using organic garbage (which causes no stink) treated with a specific type of bio-culture, one could not only cultivate a bountiful garden, but also effectively deal with the garbage generated.

The students organized a "Morning March" for social awareness about "Wet Garbage Management". They made flyers on the computer, with information on how harmful garbage is to the environment and distributed it in their colonies.

Their fliers had the following table which showed the life of the garbage we throw away and how much harm it causes to the environment because of it"s slow decomposition.

Waste items Time for decomposition Vegetables/fruits/waste food Paper bags Wood pieces Cloth bags Shoes and sandals Iron sheets Aluminum sheets Plastic bags 4-5 weeks 3 months 6 months 10-15 years 15-20 years 50-100 years 200-250 years 1 million years

Their work impressed and made aware the people in their colonies. Everyone felt the need to work towards a cleaner Mumbai.

The team participated in the Bal Vigyan Sammelan organized by Marath Vidnyan Parishad, Chunabhatti in Amravati where they described "How to Manage Wet Garbage" with the help of a presentation. Their project won second prize.

Teaching had suddenly become a serious business of dealing with community related, real life issues. After 17 years of teaching, Mrs. Dharmadhikari feels that she has more satisfaction today than ever before. She attributes all her success to the Intel® Teach Program.

Her colleagues, who had earlier felt that implementing PBL in their teaching was a laborious job, are today eager to work on projects in their own classes.

The biggest beneficiaries of this have been the students. As leaders of tomorrow they have learnt to deal with real life problems and to find effective sustainable solutions.

Wordsworth, a famous poet had said that "child is the father of man" and these young students are finding answers to problems which the world today had failed to.