Bengaluru: 10-yo environmental hero comes up with eco-friendly vegetable paper

A 10-year-old girl from Bengaluru has generated paper from daily kitchen waste.

Manya Harsha is a sustainability influencer and a budding environmental activist and crusader who has been rallying since age 6, against Environmental abuses, such as water wastage, littering on picnic spots, use of single-use plastic and deforestation has set an example to the children of her age. As the entire world shut down during the lockdown against COVID-19, Manya got busy recycling daily kitchen waste into handmade vegetable paper.

Her mantra throughout the experiments was, “Everyday kitchen waste to each paper a day.”

Explaining the reason behind her innovation, Manya said, “Born and brought up in Bangalore, I see the beautiful Garden city slowly turned down by heap Garbage dumped on the roadside and how the quantity of waste is increasing every passing day has been a matter of huge concern. Especially during the festive season, the market is full of flowers, veggies, fruits, mango-banana plants. But post-festival, the market turns out to be a dump yard of leftovers! This scenario always had made me think of a permanent solution as to how the flower and plant waste can be utilized in an Eco-friendly manner. ”

The vegetable papers are just like any other handmade paper, one can write, draw, paint, fold, create art out of it. Once used, you can put them back to the soil as fertilizers as they easily decompose.

Despite the lockdown, Manya’s Environment-friendly activities have never taken a setback. Be it, her Restore Our Earth Campaign, Strike against Plastic Campaign, Cleanup Drive at Markhonalli Dam & Varca beach; on this World Water Day, UN-Water has lauded the young girl’s efforts on their official Facebook page. She has been The Water Heroes awardee 2020 by the ministry of JAL Shakthi.