Says A K Sengupta, managing director, Foundation for Innovation and Technology Transfer (FITT), IIT Delhi's interface body for industry interaction and resource mobilisiation: ``We may write to 10 or 12 corporates for financial support for the project. The much needed project now needs to be replicated for the benefit of others. It is amazing that for over three decades, since 1961, nobody thought of sending out any garbage from the IIT campus. To make matters worse, the existing system did not discriminate between the different components of garbage. Food, paper, plastics, metal, glass or hazardous-cum-infectious substances were all dumped into the campus landfills,'' says Sengupta.

All this is about to change with the implementation of a new garbage disposal system devised by associate professor Soumitri Varadajan,who is also the faculty coordinator for the project. Varadrajan and his team have also designed a modern wheelbarrow with separate containers for various kinds of waste, which prevents its spilling.

The system was developed on the basis of three guiding principles. First, the dumping of waste in the garbage dumps and landfills of the campus should be immediately stopped. Secondly, garbage should be treated as a resource and not waste. Finally, good housekeeping and waste management supported by well designed products would be better than technological solutions for solid waste management.

With the above three broad parameters in mind, the team also demarcated the campus areas in terms of different kinds of garbage into residential areas, hostel areas, academic areas and outdoors and horticulture. At the end of the cycle, the reuse, recycle or destruction will be carried out by specialised non-governmental organisations. Earth, for instance, accepts all paper or cloth for recycling.

Food waste will berecycled by reducing it to compost by mixing it with red earthworms (eusenia foetida). Paper has to be recycled into hand-made paper; plastics will be reused for the second time; metal will be recycled at the smelt and infectious substances will be incinerated. ``Special treatment will be required for hazardous substances and some students have already volunteered to persuade campus residents to separate their waste. Once you segregate it at the source, it is much easier to recycle. The team of scientists and students working on the project will approach is the multi-storeyed complex called Takshila, to begin with,'' says Sengupta.

IIT Delhi has a sprawling campus spread over 120 acres of prime land inhabiting over 20,000 people. Formed in 1994, FITT is the marketing wing of the institute which is engaged in resource mobilisation for the premier engineering institute. The body generates resources through industrial consultancy and research and development projects. ``We generated over Rs 4 crore fromindustrial consultancy and Rs 18 crore from R & D projects this year. We ourselves have agreed in principle to invest Rs 1.5 lakh as seed money for the programme. Though it is too early to gauge the response, I hope the industry will realise the utility of the project and finance our effort,'' concludes Sengupta.