'Made in Heaven': Pained by wedding pollution, BITS Pilani alumna Sindhuja turns green marriage planner

Vijayawada: Themed decors, different cuisines, return gifts, and a gala celebration with thousands of people. This is all about weddings.

But how many of us are looking for an environment-friendly wedding?

In the world where people are talking about sustainable living, Meet Kavya Sindhuja of 'Earth Sitters', Vijayawada, who is giving weddings a new look with her waste reduction and management ideas.

How did the idea strike?

Sindhuja, an alumna of BITS Pilani, Hyderabad, later did a fellowship in Ashoka University, and a course on Sociology of Environment. A field visit to a nearby landfill changed her way of thinking about waste completely.

"I thought my responsibility ended with putting my waste into the bin. But visiting the landfill shook this understanding as I noticed the menace this huge dumpyard is creating and impacting the life around. My low waste lifestyle journey began then," said Sindhuja.

Her idea of waste reduction at events started with her wedding in 2021. "My first project started with my wedding when I decided to have everything I use for my wedding be reused or composted. More than 90% of the total waste from my wedding was biodegradable in nature and we turned that into compost," said Sindhuja, who works on event waste management in both the Telugu states.

What is her way of waste-reduction weddings?

Kavya sees that the weddings she work on have materials that are not disposable but are reusable or biodegradable at the most.

Some of her ideas are:

- Wedding menu is simple and regulated serving to avoid wastage.

-Mehendi event is with reusable cones, instead of using plastic wrapped cones.

-Decor is designed with biodegradable and reusable materials only.

-Going for digital invitations, and limiting the number of printed cards and multi paged invitation cards.

-Food is served on steel plates or in a banana leaf.

-Segregation bins are kept to dispose food plates.

-For return gifts, kum kum, and turmeric wrapped in paper, steel straw collapsible tumblers, and shampoo bars, big cloth grocery bags etc

- Segregating of waste at source at the events and processing it responsibly

Explaining her way of preparing for a low waste wedding, Sindhuja said, "Generally, customers get in touch before a month. We help in choosing the decor, and menu, and low waste return gifts. We aim to avoid plastic as much as possible. In a few cases, even if it there is plastic, we aim to send it for recycling,"

How is the waste converted?

"Once the wedding is over, the biodegradable waste including plate leftovers, banana leaves, and other decorative materials collected are transported to our own processing unit or local waste processing partners based on the location. These biodegradable materials are chopped and mixed with cow dung slurry for breakdown. In this way, we make sure large % of waste generated from the weddings go back to soil,” Sindhuja told NewsMeter.

According to Sindhuja, it is most important for the bride and groom families to get involved in decor and catering aspects of weddings to reduce waste. "Caterers get many disposables that are not recyclable. At the end of the marriage, everything is dumped or burnt causing pollution. It is always good to opt for limited menu, reusable untensils, banana leaf and other biodegradables for the food section," she added.

Her advice on waste reduction

"A lot of people do not pay attention to the materials used in their events. We should identify non-recyclable materials and avoid them or find alternatives that are more earth-friendly.

On a personal level, segregation, composting and reducing single-use disposables can reduce a a lot of waste. It may not happen overnight but changes can be made gradually," said Sindhuja.