Ree Gaun Chapter
The bumpy and dusty ride to Ree Gaun started on the morning of March 3rd. The weather was crisp and clear, and the Ganesh Himal Range welcomed us from the instant we left Kathmandu Valley. It was winter and dry season, hence the shortcut to the village was operational. Through the winding and dusty roads under the clear blue sky, with the snow-capped Ganesh Himal range and Manaslu range smiling at us, we reached Ree Gaun.
Kaisarki Tamang, co-founder of Paramendo and Manager of the most beautifully located CRC (Community Recycling Center), greeted us with a wide smile. This CRC is right in the entrance of the village, and from the village, it seems as though it lies on the base of the Ganesh Himal Range.
Kaisarki showed us through the well-managed CRC, where in one room, the collected waste was properly segregated. The waste was segregated according to type and color as well. He then showed us the 15 bags of shredded MLP (Multi-Layered Plastics), each weighing about 7 kgs. Multi-Layered plastics are plastics that have other materials mixed with plastics, like aluminium and paper, and are one of the most difficult types of plastic to recycle. Examples of MLPs are juice boxes, biscuit wrappers and noodle wrappers. He informed us that it took him about 4-5 hours to shred those 105 kgs of MLPs.
Kaisarki, who is also an innovator, showed us the tiles made out of MLPs, using the heat press that was set up a couple of months ago by the Impact Hub Kathmand/Fablab Nepal team. He started making these tiles as a major waste collected in the village was MLP. He is planning to make better prototypes of the tiles and weather test them in the coming rainy season. Finally, he briefly demonstrated the operation of the grinder machine to grind some MLPs.
With the sun slowly setting behind the mountains, we headed towards our lodges. There we rested for a bit and later convened at Kaiserki’s house and discussed his future plans about piloting the tiles in the nearby abandoned hut. After a scrumptious meal prepared by Mr. Bishal Tamang, co-founder of Paramendo, we slept for we had a long journey to Serthung the next day.
Sertung Chapter
We started at 10:00 AM from Ree through a long and bumpy journey to Sertung. Sertung is a village within Ruby Valley Municipality in Dhading and lies on the route of the Ganesh Himal Trek. The road to Sertung was very dangerous, with lots of loose sand, narrow and high roads. Finally, we reached Sertung at 4:00 PM. After a round of hot cup of black tea and some popcorn, we sat with Mr. Phe Dorji Tamang, who is the ward chief of Sertung Ward No. 3.
Phe Dorji briefed us about the current state of affairs of Sertung Ward. Ruby Valley had 6 wards, in which wards 3 and 4 were in Sertung, and ward 3 had 700 households, of which about 300 were currently empty. Ward 3 had 4 hotels and informed us that they had designated 4 spaces to collect waste. The ward had started collecting the solid waste a year ago, before which the village was littered with waste. After the meeting, we decided to visit some collection centers.
We visited two of the four collection centers, one of which was right in front of the community health post. By our observation, it was more of a dumping site than a collection center. Segregation was absent, and people had openly burned plastics at these sites as well. We pointed out this fact to Phe Dorji, and he assured us that he would make improvements in the future.
The next morning, we were invited to the office of Phe Dorji for a meeting with the waste management committee. Four women volunteers oversaw the waste collecting activities, as well as did waste audit on every house. For every 100 house there was 1 volunteer who went to each house and did the audit according to their checklist. All the sanitation programs were being done by Shenchen Karuna.
Phe Dorji had visited Ree Gaun and was impressed as well as inspired to see the CRC. He never thought that such machines could transform waste into something valuable and useful. Due to the improper disposal of waste, Phe Dorji was planning to establish and set up a similar CRC in the Sertung as well. To discuss such matters, Phe Dorji scheduled a brief meeting with the mayor, Ram Singh Tamang, and deputy mayor Phelama Tamang of Sertung. We discussed the possibility of setting up CRC in Sertung and ways P2G project could aid this process. Phe Dorji and the mayor said they were very keen and enthusiastic about the prospect of CRC and assured us they would continue the discussions with Paramendo.
Then we hopped on to our vehicle, observed the possible site for the CRC with Phe Dorji and returned back to Kathmandu via the dusty and winding road knowing that we had potentially created a new recycling hub at Sertung.
