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A Bengaluru café run by Raja, a radio jockey, entrepreneur, emcee and self-proclaimed waste engineer has been drawing quite a buzz as the city’s first zero-waste juice bar, where juices are served in organic cups,that are nothing but organic shells and peels. The owner was inspired to transform his café into a zero-waste eatery when he saw the South African city of Cape Town go dry in 2018. This zero-waste cafe has completely done away with plastic and paper usage to promote sustainability.
As reported by WION, Raja says, “This is a 100 per cent zero-waste cafe. We have nothing that we throw out. We don’t use paper, plastic, carry bag, cups or straws since 2018. There is no dry waste at all. The only waste being generated is the fruit waste of which we do factory level segregation. We segregate the fruit waste at source into citrus, non-citrus. The citrus fruits are used to make bio-enzyme and the rest of it either gets composted or is used as cow feed. The seeds are used to make art-work, jewellery and rangolis. The whole idea was to repurpose everything that is thrown as waste”
He further says, “I realised that at my juice centre, we were using nearly 250ml of water to wash each glass. If I was selling 100 glasses of juice a day, it meant that I was flushing out 25 litres of water down the drain. I realised it was a criminal waste of water, especially when the whole world is facing a crisis. So I got thinking if we can do something better. Since I am an engineer, I realised if I do not engineer the process of saving something then there is no point in studying the course. I looked at the fruits and I saw that the smaller watermelons, when halved, could be used to serve the juice that was made from its pulp,”
This manner of serving juices in fruit shells has promoted sustainability by helping save water, reduce waste and minimise labour time for his staff. The used shells are then supplied to cattle owners as fodder. Raja uses fruits like watermelons, musk melons, sun melons, oranges, guavas, bananas and several other fruits to serve the juices.
In a city which produces over 5000 tonnes of garbage everyday, this kind of effort is a big step in promoting sustainability. Moreover, Raja feels that there is a lot to be monetised from waste.
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