No wastage today.No Shortage tomorrow.

Team Name: Sepia
(Shruti Shah,Shailee Jain,Abhimanyu Shirwalkar,Phani)
Location:BITS Pilani
Objective: To become changemakers for a day
To document the change in the form of a video and spread awareness about the cause.

Becoming change makers for day required us to find a social cause and then a means to highlight the cause while bringing about a noticeable change. After a false start, focusing on Prostitution in India, due to unforeseen circumstances, we were sitting in front of the Lecture Theater Complex at 10 in the night thinking of an issue which could create an impact. We brainstormed on ideas on casteism among the youth, elderly people in Indian society and the state of handicapped people in our society. We were unable to come to a conclusion..each issue had some inherent problems of documentation and filming. It was then that Shruti mentioned a proposal during one of the Student Mess Council meetings- to reduce food wastage.
Food wastage in the college messes has been for long, a cause of concern. At an estimate about 125 kg of food gets wasted every day in a mess.Some steps were taken to stem it but the problem persisted nevertheless. So what could we do to reduce food wastage and that too in a single day?.We soon became obsessed with trying to figure a way out..to bring about the change. It eventually led to the brainwave of making people empty their plates into a dustbin. This would make them realise the amount of food they were wasting and secondly cause embarrassment which would make think twice before wasting food next time. It helped things that Phani is the Mess Representative of the VKB mess. He first sought the permission of the Student Welfare Dean who also liked the idea and gave his support to the experiment.
We decided to carry out the experiment the next day during dinner. The mess workers were briefed about the idea. The person serving the food pasted a placard "No wastage today" to make sure people were made aware. As the people started streaming in, we waited anxiously for the first person to put his finished plate on the table. A dustbin had been kept near the table for those wasting food to empty their plates into. When the first person put his finished plate onto the table, Manyu requested him to empty the plate himself into the dustbin and only put an empty plate on the table. He gave a scornful look. It didnt help things that we were recording his ordeal. He relented when we reminded of the NO WASTAGE TODAY placard. He walked away hurriedly after emptying the plate. We requested the people as they came to do the same. Soon, we had aroused the curiosity of the people eating in the mess. They had realised that wasting food meant going through the embarrassment of emptying the plate into the dustbin. What followed was unbelievable...hardy anyone came to drop his plate with food wasted in it. They were making an effort to finish the plate. Accustomed to watching plates half filled with food being dropped off, this was very heartening. Phani being the mess rep helped ease things a great deal as he convinced people about our initiative and that we needed their cooperation.
Meanwhile Shailee and Shruti were in the RB mess collecting data on food wastage in the messes. The figures were astounding. The total food wasted in the campus was a staggering 4.5 tonnes/month/mess and this was given at a meagre Rs 300 to the poultry farms. In a single mess , food wasted during dinner per day is averaged 50 kg. We were waiting eagerly to see what the number would be today. The answer- 10kg. Yup, 10 kg.We had to make sure that the phenomenal drop was due to the no wastage motto adopted for the dinner. We asked them two questions -Did the no wastage placard cause to take food consciously? Did the act of throwing the waste food into the dustbin create a difference? To both, the answers were a resounding yes. The placard had made them think twice while getting served. The throwing away of the food caused them much embarrassment but they realized their mistake and promised not to waste food in the future.It was a day of fulfillment. We indeed brought about a change. Through a small action we made people realize the larger issue at hand- the food wasted by you can feed another impoverished child in the country.
We would not have succeeded had it not been for the support of the students. Their conscience was in the right place but it only needed an awakening call.