On a warm morning in Karnataka’s Bilapura village, students gather around composting units, notebooks open, watching food waste turn back into soil. This lesson has little to do with textbooks or theory. It begins with a problem the village has been dealing with for years.
As new housing came up and consumption patterns changed, waste in Bilapura Panchayat began to grow faster than local systems could manage. Garbage piled up on open land. Some of it slipped into nearby lakes. Over time, the impact became impossible to ignore. Residents lived with the smell and smoke. Animals fed along roadsides. And the landscape slowly carried the burden.
This learning space exists because of that reality.
There are no blackboards here and no exams. What happens around these composting units is shaped by the everyday challenges the village’s panchayat faces. It is from here that Azim Premji University enters the story, not as an observer, but as a neighbour.
At the university, sustainability guides daily practice, from how water is conserved to how waste is handled on campus. That everyday discipline shaped how the institution chose to work with the community just beyond its gates.
“We cannot keep preaching sustainability without practising it,” says Professor Anjor Bhaskar, faculty member and convener of the university’s sustainability committee. “If we are teaching young people about building a just, humane and equitable society, sustainability has to be at the core of that vision.”
Founded under the Azim Premji Foundation, the university was built with a clear mission: to contribute meaningfully to a society worth living in. Sustainability principles shaped the campus infrastructure early on. An extensive rainwater harvesting system collects rain from rooftops and open land and channels it into a man-made lake. Today, the campus can store nearly two crore litres of rainwater.
Yet for Anjor, something still felt incomplete.
“We didn’t want to be an elite institution that exists like an island, teaching about development and sustainability while ignoring what’s happening just outside our gates,” he says. “That wouldn’t be doing justice to our role as an educational institution.”
That unresolved question pushed the university to look outward.
When waste outpaced local systems
Bilapura Panchayat, with a population of around 12,000 people, lies on the outskirts of Bengaluru, shaped by both rural life and rapid urban expansion. This in-between identity brings its own pressures, especially when it comes to managing everyday services like waste.
In Bilapura, students learn sustainability not from theory, but by watching waste return to the soil it once came from.
“Earlier, we simply didn’t have enough human or material resources to manage waste properly,” says Manjunath, executive officer of Anekal Taluk, under which Bilapura Panchayat falls.
“This area is neither fully rural nor fully urban. That mix creates unique challenges.”
As waste volumes increased, existing systems began to fail in predictable ways. Mixed garbage was dumped on open land, along village borders, and into lakes. By evening, some of these piles were set on fire. “Burning waste caused severe air pollution,” Manjunath explains. “Wet and dry waste entered lakes and harmed aquatic life. Plastic along roadsides was eaten by animals. The health risks were serious.”
Certain waste streams made the situation worse. Chicken waste from local meat shops, including feathers and unsold remains, was often packed into bags and dumped along roads at night. Stray animals gathered. Sanitation deteriorated further.
Panchayats knew this could not continue. In some areas, waste collection vehicles were introduced through CSR initiatives or limited budgets. But without proper processing systems, collection alone only moved the problem from one place to another.
This gap is where the partnership began to take shape.
Starting with the neighbourhood
Azim Premji University is located within Bilapura Panchayat itself. When the panchayat approached the university, beginning locally felt like the most practical place to start.
“If something could work on the campus, it could work in neighbouring panchayats too,” says Anjor.
In 2023, the university began putting students at the centre of its sustainability committee, with around 15 of them taking on active leadership roles. Around the same time, it started working closely with Hasiru Dala, a Bengaluru-based organisation experienced in decentralised and inclusive waste management.
That effort came together on 21 September 2024, when the collaboration became a formal partnership with the Bilapura Panchayat. It was a moment that moved the work beyond campus and firmly into everyday life in the village.
From the beginning, the focus was clear. This would not be a quick fix.
“We told the panchayat clearly that we were not here to take waste away and make the problem disappear,” Anjor says. “We wanted to build a decentralised model where responsibility is shared, especially by those who generate the waste.”
With the university’s research-driven approach, Hasiru Dala’s on-ground experience, and the panchayat’s leadership, the group began rethinking how waste could be managed with the community at its centre.
Sharing responsibility for waste
The first question the team asked was not technical. It was about responsibility. Why does the waste problem continue even when solutions already exist?
“If change has to happen at scale, the thinking has to shift,” says Anjor. “The people who generate waste are far removed from its consequences. Responsibility breaks there.”
What was once seen as garbage becomes a starting point for learning, responsibility, and repair.
That distance became clearer as recycling options expanded, but waste generation kept rising. New forms of waste, from multi-layered plastics to complex packaging, entered the system faster than solutions could keep up.
Bilapura’s model responded by rethinking roles across the system. Rather than acting only as a service provider, the panchayat began positioning itself as a regulator and partner. Households were encouraged to reflect on how much waste they generated, what kind it was, and where it finally went.
This thinking soon took physical form.
Building a local waste system
Designed with Hasiru Dala, a model Zero Waste Centre (ZWC) was set up as a single site where the panchayat’s waste could be handled close to where it was generated. The aim was to keep the space visible, accessible, and functional, rather than tucked away on the margins.
Within this centre sits the Dry Waste Collection Centre, where dry waste is sorted and stored. Its roofing sheets are made from recycled multi-layered plastic, a choice that keeps the workspace insulated and comfortable during the summer months while putting hard-to-recycle material to use.
The Zero Waste Centre keeps waste visible, reminding people that disposal is never someone else’s problem.
Composting followed the same thinking. Instead of relying on energy-intensive machinery, the centre uses low-cost aerobic composters. These can handle food waste, coconut shells, bones, and garden trimmings with less effort and long-term sustainability in mind.
Over time, the compost produced here began feeding the land around it. A food forest slowly took shape, with fruit trees growing in soil enriched by the waste the village once struggled to manage. What was earlier seen as a burden started becoming part of a shared, living landscape.
“We wanted people to feel welcome here,” says Anjor. “Waste facilities can be places of pride.”
The people behind the work
People remain central to the model. Six local women are employed as waste workers and receive PPE kits designed for safety and comfort. The panchayat also appointed a woman SHG member to drive the waste collection vehicle, challenging long-standing gender roles in sanitation work.
What was once a dumping site becomes a shared ecological asset.
To support this people-led system, technology plays a careful, supporting role. The GreenPathOrg app tracks waste from households to processing centres through QR codes. It is operated daily by on-ground waste workers and panchayat-linked staff, while the data is reviewed by the panchayat and the project team to monitor waste flows and address gaps as they arise.
The app itself was built by students. Bardawal Balaji Nayak, a BTech Computer Science student at Lovely Professional University, developed it during his internship with Azim Premji University. He worked alongside Sreeja Gummula, a BA History student at Azim Premji University, who collaborated on the project as part of a course on Sustainable Waste Management in the Community Context taught by Anjor Bhaskar. Together, they created GreenPathOrg as a practical tool designed for use on the ground, rooted in the needs of the community.
This work also reshaped how students experienced learning on campus. For Anup Mishra (21), a third-year mathematics student and member of the university’s Sustainability Committee, it shifted everyday habits and perspectives.
“It made me rethink my own food habits and consumption,” he says. “It makes me so happy that we are not just learning for ourselves anymore, we are involving others, too.”
The sustainability committee brings together around 15 core student members, along with several others who participate through different student-led clubs. Anup coordinates the sustainable farming club, which grew out of a course on sustainable ways of growing food, taught by faculty member Preeti Singh. After the course ended, students chose to continue working together under her guidance, applying what they had learnt on campus.
Other clubs under the committee focus on thrift and reuse, medicinal plant gardening, and related practices. Together, these student groups form the wider learning ecosystem that supports the university’s sustainability work and feeds into initiatives beyond the campus.
Taken together, these choices, centring people, using technology with restraint, and building trust across roles, shaped how sustainability took root in Bilapura. What emerged was not a single project, but a system sustained by participation, design, and shared responsibility.
When change became routine
Two years into the initiative, Bilapura’s waste story looks very different. The panchayat has achieved nearly 90 percent source segregation. Almost all organic waste generated locally is composted. Apartment complexes that once distanced themselves from waste now manage composting in-house.
“What changed was sustained engagement and consistent monitoring,” says Manjunath. “Mindsets shifted over time.”
Bilapura’s model now travels beyond its borders, carried by trust and proof.
As segregation became more consistent, residents began connecting it to their own health, the surrounding environment, and the dignity of those handling waste every day.
That shift in thinking opened the door to wider change. Over 220 women have since adopted reusable menstrual products, reducing the amount of waste sent to landfills and improving safety for waste workers.
The impact goes beyond reducing waste. Material that once ended up in dumpsites now helps support local livelihoods. Compost goes back into the soil, improves biodiversity, and helps grow food locally.
Bilapura’s model has also begun travelling beyond its borders. Over the past year, eight neighbouring panchayats, covering nearly 1.5 lakh people, have partnered with the university and Hasiru Dala to adopt decentralised and inclusive waste management systems.
The story leaves behind a simple truth. Sustainability works when institutions, local governments, and citizens share responsibility. When care becomes routine, sustainability moves from intention into everyday life.
All images courtesy Anjor Bhasker
