Food forward: Bengaluru teens take steps to curb food wastage

BENGALURU: With an aim to promote a cleaner and healthier Bengaluru, five students in the city have come together to start a social initiative called Waste Nought. The youngsters are investing their time and efforts beyond the classroom lessons to serve food to the needy. A brainchild of five Class 12 students - Sidaarth Santhosh, Saurav Sanjeev, Kushagra Sethi, Nikhil Deepak and Varun Durai -- Waste Nought was started recently to acts as a mediator between institutions that deal with bulk amounts of food which often gets wasted, and organisations that are in need of meals on a daily basis. 

“Many institutions like school and college canteens, and other large kitchens often have consumable items in excess. We facilitate the transport of food from area of surplus to that with food deficiency,” says Varun Durai, a 16-year-old student of The International School Bangalore, Whitefield-Sarjapur Road, and one of the members of the group.

Waste Nought has now tied up with The Amaatra Academy hostel mess, Off Sarjapur Road, and Sri Krishnashraya Educational Trust, an orphanage in KR Puram, for collecting food. Talking about the inspiration to initiate such a cause, Sidaarth Santhosh, student of The Amaatra Academy, says, “The main motivation behind this initiative was to give back to the less fortunate strata of the society.

We wanted to give whatever we could to those who are not fortunate enough to be helped by their parents. We saw a good quantity of food being wasted in our own school hostel mess. We collect food twice a week during the weekends from the mess and send it to Sri Krishnashraya Educational Trust. We have distributed more than 800 kg of food until now.

Distributing this food to them helped us counter two problems faced in Bangalore –hunger and food wastage.” He further adds that the entire operation doesn’t have much expenses, except the transportation cost, which is being managed with their pocket money. They are planning to expand their distribution network to other NGOs in the city by December with more volunteers. The teenagers give credit to their school authorities and parents for supporting their initiative. “Initially, our parents were worried about our studies. We take their concerns seriously.

That’s why we are on a break now due to our half-yearly exams. But our parents know that this initiative will have a positive influence on the society, as well as give us valuable experience in interacting with different people. The school welcomed our idea wholeheartedly,” says Sidaarth. His mother, Sumethra Santhosh, feels proud of her child’s efforts. At the same time she wonders how such an idea emerged among the children at this age. “It is quite commendable that kids are thinking about social service at this age,” she says. I do not think I would have thought of something like this.”