13 June 2015 - QA 12

Gurudev, when I travel from the Ashram to the City, I see a lot of cows eating from garbage bins. What can we do about this? I think this problem is seen all over the country.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

Yes, you are right, this problem is present all over the country. You all should visit our Garbage Transformation Mission department here. We have been actively working to educate the people all around us, not to throw plastic and reduce the use of plastic. We have installed a machine here that converts plastic into diesel. Our volunteers now collect plastic thrown away in the nearby areas and feed it into this machine.
In the same way, all the waste material that comes from the kitchen is used for conversion into bio-gas. Every day there is around 400-500 kilos of waste generated in the Ashram kitchen, such as the vegetable peels, etc. By converting it all into bio-gas, we are able to refill all the gas cylinders in the kitchens very easily. So in this way, we can all adopt such little and simple techniques in villages to manage and convert waste materials, and save the environment. This will make every village self-sufficient. This is very important.

It is not good to leave the cows loose in the open to graze where they wander. It is also not good to dump plastics and waste materials in the environment. We have to create a lot of awareness in the people. This in itself is a good seva. So you should channel the strength you gain from your sadhana towards such good causes in the greater interest of the society. Go from door to door and educate the people to not litter everywhere and keep their surroundings clean.