MARGAO: At the time when the state of Goa is struggling to tackle the garbage menace, Eleuterio Anastasio Carneiro, commonly known as ‘Goa’s Garbage Warrior’ is spending sleepless nights with his research to make Goa Garbage Free.
What is interesting is that Eleuterio and his wife Juliet Vaz e Carneiro spend half of their salary conducting free workshops on garbage management for the last several years.
Hailing from Navelim, and an art teacher by profession along with his wife who is also a teacher known as ‘ Magical Hands lady’ among the folks of Goa, conducts free workshops in Waste Management and Kitchen Gardening all over the State during their free time like Sundays and holidays.
Eleuterio is a garbage warrior by passion. His scientific temperament made him come out with his invention for composting wet waste with black soldier fly larvae along with Microbial Fermentation Technology. He has around 2000 plus such composters across the state and other parts of India.
The Navelim village panchayat was presented with the ‘cleanest village in South Goa’ award under the aegis of the Swach Bharat Abhiyaan in December 2017. Not surprising, considering that this South Goa village, bordering the city of Margao has initiated several waste management initiatives which have borne fruit under the leadership of Eleuterio who was chosen by the Navelim village Gram Sabha Members as their Village Development Committee and Garbage Management Committee Convenor.
Speaking to Herald, he informed that after noticing mixed garbage dumped along the roadsides somewhere from 2009, he spent various ways researching to solve the problem of wet garbage.
“Initially I came up with the black soldier fly larvae (BSFL) composter, which uses microbial fermentation and methanotrophic bacteria to break down wet waste without releasing any foul odour. Thereafter I went on to share this technology with Navelim panchayat, expecting no remuneration in return,” he stated.
Interestingly, the composter, which is presently distributed through the panchayat, has become a big hit in the village and has changed the way residents treat their waste. It has also been the topic of discussion at national-level workshops held in collaboration with the panchayat and ICAR-CCARI, Ela.
Carneiro’s tryst with waste management began during his posting at a school in Valpoi, Sattari, in 2006, when he and his family would set an example by sweeping the village’s roads. He eventually mentored over 200 volunteers to begin the NGO, Gandhiji’s Dream, which today undertakes cleanliness drives in Sattari taluka every Sunday.
“Upon my transfer to a school in Galgibaga, I began using my car to pick up litter on my way to and from the institution. This caught the eye of then Canacona former Zilla parishad member Daya Pagi, who requested the Goa Industrial Development Corporation to rid the entire highway of garbage”, he added.
Carneiro says; “If I die tomorrow, the God given knowledge I have will die with me. But if I share what I have, there will be hundreds of Carneiros doing my job.”
As a social message, his request to the members of the society to cooperate with the Panchayats and Municipalities , segregate your waste and hand over all dry waste to the authorities during door to door collection, compost or treat your own wet waste.
“What I have seen when we open the road side garbage bags most of the educated people like teachers , doctors, engineers, etc found dumping garbage besides the daily wage migrants labourers who stay in rented rooms.
This Garbage Warrior to intensify his fight against garbage littering in the village, formed night patrol teams with some volunteers and started patrolling the village with vehicles fitted with CCTV cameras to dissuade people from dumping garbage in the open.
He says that after getting inspiration from Shirin Merchant, one of India’s famous canine trainers, Carneiro gave a thought of roping in village stray dogs into night patrol which can help without going out physically doing night patrol.
First he used dog barking psychology by setting audio traps to record barking sound at various black spots and accordingly to identify the type of intruder dog is barking, like cattle, thief or person dumping garbage.
Next is identifying the time of dumping garbage at a particular spot by the culprits.
He also tried mounting camera traps on the collar belt of the stray canines which help to record the incidents as evidence and Navelim Panchayat issued challans the offenders under Goa Non Biodegradable Garbage Control Act through the challan books supplied by Goa Science and Technology Department and deposited into the Government account.
He has been awarded by the Directorate of Panchayats for his dedicated work to bring change in waste management over Salcete panchayats.
