CSR = Citizen Social Responsibility!

Weddings are all about joy, celebrations, decorations, lights, music, shopping, spending, food, clothes, jewellery, gifts, travel, accommodation, friends and family as two beautiful souls come together, taking a vow to lead a life of care, compassion and love, come what may.  While every single aspect is thoughtfully planned and executed, hardly any thought goes towards the waste generated during the event. It is common sight to find the ubiquitous plastic water bottles, hardly sipped or half-used, mindlessly left all over the wedding venue. Plastic-film wrapped flower bouquets, plastic covers, glossy gift wraps, single use plastic cutlery turn the well-decorated place into a complete trash house as the revelries come to an end. Only to go to land-fills. Only to pollute the soil, water and air for now and all generations to come. Doesn’t Mother Earth need care, compassion and love too ?

The theme of Earth Day, 2024 is “Planet vs. Plastics”. Well I was not aware of this when my son’s wedding was fixed for December, 2023 but I strongly felt it was a fit and proper occasion to work towards ‘One Earth, one chance: let’s make it count’!  We explored minimum usage of plastic and celebrated it as a ‘green, responsible, sustainable wedding’. Happy to share that with a strong purpose, careful planning, correct choice of vendors, specific communication to them, special appeal to guests,  a low-waste wedding became a reality. What did we do and how did we do it ?

• The young couple preferred an open-air venue with the mandap open to the skies, set amidst green trees, expansive space and an earthy, rustic setting. We found that in https://www.shankaraa.com/ in a concrete jungle like Bangalore. It helped that the wedding was in a pleasant wintry-December that did not require fans or air conditioners.
• Hardly 50 wedding invitation cards were printed to personally invite elders of the family. It was a simple, post-card size invite that was designed by the couple themselves. No fancy layers of paper or decoration. Whatsapp was the way to go for all e-invites and a personal phone call in most cases. We had about 2000 guests overall even though we chose to minimise personal visits (this is not to undermine the joy of meeting people in person).
• Card had a special appeal “We are attempting a minimum waste wedding. Please help us by avoiding bouquets, gift wrapping and plastic”. About 90% of guests appreciated and used digital payments for gifts. So did we, for our close family circle.
• The wedding decorator worked on the Go-green theme
  Reducing/ avoiding use of plastic
  Reuse vs. One time use materials
  Recycling the resources
  Decor – Going local, using seasonal flowers, reducing carbon footprint
  Not using Flex, plastic covers, flower packaging as much as possible
• Said No to plastic pet bottles, paper glasses, straws, paper plates, plastic spoons, katoris. Caterers were instructed to serve water in glass and steel tumblers instead of distributing sealed plastic water bottles to every person. They resisted initially but gave in when we were firm. Saved not only plastic but also reduced our costs drastically considering how each guest thoughtlessly picks up a new water bottle each time he/she feels thirsty instead of carrying the old one around.
• Breakfast and lunch served on traditional banana leaves that are bio-degradable was relished and appreciated by all. Wherever needed, we used steel plates, tumblers and spoons along with reusable porcelain crockery. Where did we source 500+ steel items from ? That too at zero cost ? From https://www.adamyachetana.org/plate-bank/, an NGO being run by Dr. Tejaswini Ananthkumar which has a zero waste, steel cutlery bank that operates on a refundable deposit basis. While the caterers were initially reluctant, they agreed when we insisted and got extra cleaners as well. Surprisingly, not a single cutlery was lost and we could return 100% to the NGO.
• Two of my clients chipped in when I chose sustainable return gifts. www.trustbasket.com offered fabric grow bags and vegetable seeds which we distributed in brown paper carry bags instead of plastic covers. Similarly @themaaninistore (Maanini Vasthra Samskrithi) arranged for multi-hued thambula bags made from light-weight, handloom sarees that added a splash of colour to the green environment. Helped in replacing plastic and other typical, cheap non-degradable carry bags.

Many more initiatives made the wedding innovative, fun and a minimum-waste event. www.hasirudalainnovations.com, another client of mine were the Waste Management Partners at the venue and made sure their trained waste pickers, cleaners kept the venue trash free and scientifically segregated different types of waste for further processing. As per HDI Impact report for the wedding ceremony, Wet waste was sent to bio-gas facility that produces renewable energy for cooking and slurry for fertilizer. Dry waste was sent to aggregation centre and recycled as buttons for fashion industry, flex turned into waste collection bags and roof covers for needy, non-recyclable waste co-processed at kilns as alternatives to fossil fuels. Garden waste sent to composting facility for composting and donation to farmers. Reject waste that cannot be processed was sent to authorised, scientific landfills.  Social impact as per report – 11 front-line workers empowered, 75% being women, 1 micro-entrepreneur involved and 400% increase in monetary benefits to workers !

CSR need not be Corporate Social Responsibility alone. It can also be Citizen Social Responsibility, in our own small-little ways. Give it a try. Just like the journey of Samhita, one issue at a time, carrying regulatory udpates and messages of social relevance since 2009. Today we are 1 short of the 300th issue!

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