Aditi Deodhar: The woman who renewed Dried leaves
Today environmental degradation is an issue which has got no boundaries to talk about and work for. In the current times when the flora and fauna are suffering extensively, our Woman for the day has started up a venture to give back to nature what it bestows us with. Little perplexed right! Today, on the ChewDa Navratri series we gonna celebrate Aditi Deodhar, the founder of Brown Leaf. During the falls, our surrounding gets carpeted with dried brown leaves. Be it the porch of our home or be it the lanes of our colonies, dried leaves cover them up. And what we do is sweep them, pile them up and set fire to it. But Aditi Deodhar, who is an IT consultant by profession, got compassionate about those lifeless dried leaves and strived to end the above-said practice.
Aditi Deodhar, a PhD in Mathematics, belongs to the city of Pune. She was very much concerned about the dried leaves that encapsulate the lawns, gardens, streets, mostly in the urban cities. Initially, she restricted the sweeping ladies to burn up the dried leaves in her locality. But after a few months, when the heap of dried leaves became a concern of public resentment, she came up with an idea of reusing these dried leaves. Soon Deodhar came across an Urban Cultivator named Sujata, who was in need of dried leaves to form compost for her small gardening endeavours. It is then when she thought of forming a forum which could stop the burning of dried leaves and initiate the reuse of the same.
In November 2016, Aditi Deodhar founded Brown Leaf, a website which aims to prevent the burning of dried leaves and reusing them by mulching or composting. By April 2017, Deodhar and the members of Brown Leaf could save up around 5000 gunny bags of dried leaves. In this website, the team is educating people about the uses of dried leaves. Fallen dried leaves can be used for mulching, composting and a lot more. The website Brown Leaf acts as a medium for the ones having the heap of dried leaves and the one who need that dried leaves. Within no time, this easy yet ingenious idea got flame. The people who would receive the dried leaves started sharing pictures and stories of their gardens and its yieldings. This turned out to be a humungous turning point for the incentive. More and more people started collaborating with the website through a WhatsApp group. The ones having the stack of dried leaves donated it to the ones who needed that dried leaves.
Deodhar’s initiative not only revised the fate of those dead dried leaves but also transformed the ideologies of people. The ones who were considering the dried leaves simply a waste product to dispose of started referring it as Brown Gold. After witnessing the successful results, people started composting those fallen leaves and using it instead of soil. The outcomes were productive. This ingratiated more donors and receivers. Now the website also holds courses to train people about recycling this brown gold and use it for mulching or composting.
In one of Aditi’s interview, she said that ” There is no concept of Waste in nature, it is only in the urban tracts we have come up with this concept. Trees shed leaves during the fall to conserve water. Now the dried leaves forms a protective layer in the soil which retains moisture throughout the summer.” She believes that the environment shall guide our paths to protect it. We can protect nature by recycling the products we have been bestowed by Nature itself. With this principle in mind, Aditi Deodhar has set up an example that a simple idea can result in humongous outcomes. This software-based environmentalist has also set up another forum called Jeevitnadi, which aims to cleanse the river water which is being polluted via the actions of humans.
This Navratri we celebrate the will and intentions of Aditi Deodhar, who has taken up a small yet elusive stride to preserve our degrading flora.