Durga Puja is here, and so is the grandeur, lights and celebration but it also brings something else: tonnes of festive waste. As per media reports from last year, during the Puja days, Kolkata generates some 1,000 tonnes of additional solid waste each day, increasing the daily solid waste amount to something around 5,500 tonnes every day. Even in the neighbouring corporations like Bidhannagar or Howrah, there is an increase of around 100-150 tonnes, above their usual 500-600 tonnes of daily waste.
But many Durga Puja committees outside India are making sure to keep their celebrations as eco-friendly and sustainable as possible, without compromising on gathering or celebrations. Be it the six-year-old Sankalpo Chelmsford Durga Puja or the 27-year-old Bengali Association of Finland Durga Puja at Helsinki, there idols are made of fibreglass, which, after the celebrations are over, are cleaned and stored carefully.
While Kolkata idol makers Chaina Pal and Sanatan Rudra Pal also weighed in, confirming that it is only fibreglass idols, painted with waterproof oil paint, which are sent outside India, and have a height of around 4-6 ft (including the chaalchitra/backdrop), Mala Pal said she has also sold small clay idols, with an iron skeleton inside. But the clay idols have a maximum height of 3ft.
Boston Durga Bari Puja committee, which is celebrating its 15th year and chose to decorate the puja with one distinct craft of Bengal, has chose Midnapore's rustic madur (grass mat) to be the centre of their decorations. They shared that alongside their main deity, a small clay replica is placed at Maa Durga’s feet and worshipped with identical rituals. On Dashami, this smaller idol is carried out in a joyful procession and immersed in a ceremonial pool. “To complete our eco-friendly tradition, the flowers and prasad remnants are respectfully returned to the earth to be composted,” they informed.
On the other hand, Brazil Sarbajanin Durga Puja, which until last year worshipped an idol made of marble dust and is waiting for a bigger fibreglass idol this year, shared: “Our ghot, puja flowers, and other remnants are neatly packed into recyclable packets and sent for respectable trash collection.”
“Our idol is never taken for visarjan,” informs Indrajit Chaudhuri, President, Bengali Association of Finland. “So far we have had 3 idols brought from Kumartuli in Kolkata, and the first two idols have been donated to the Espoo City Museum. The Espoo City Museum has preserved our first idol in a display with a virtual reality setup captured from our puja celebrations. It is part of a permanent exhibition. We do perform visarjan of the organic material in the nearby river and preserve the ghot for re-use,” he added.
Most of these associations use decorations that can be easily reused year after year. “We use a lot of jute, leaves, and plant material to make it look authentic as well as traditional. Furthermore, we also repeat decoration items like haatpakha, pots, mandalas, even background curtains, main frames, a beautifully painted Dakshineshwar mandir on plywood, which not only reduces unnecessary trash but also reduces the budget for decoration," says Anuja Bhattacharjya, resident of Brazil for 10 years, communication head, Brazil Durga Pujo Organizing Committee.
Debalina Gupta, founding member/trustee at Sankalpo Chelmsford, adds, “We have consciously moved towards bamboo-based biodegradable disposables, while continuing to reuse our decorations, Puja infrastructure and materials.
“We also work hard to ensure that food is not wasted. Wherever there is additional food, we have a longstanding arrangement with Sanctus, a local homelessness charity. We pre-arrange this with them so they have advance notice and can incorporate the food into their meal planning and distribute it to people who need it,” adds Debalina.
Over the five days of Puja, Boston Durgabari serves 3,500 packets of bhog, and has replaced plastic cutlery with compostable bamboo alternatives and transitioned mostly to paper-based containers. “While we haven't eliminated styrofoam to-go boxes just yet, we plan to transition fully to eco-friendly compostable clamshell boxes during the final two days of Puja as we work toward a zero-plastic festival,” informed a spokesperson.
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