An Innovative-Thinker from Nagpur saved 35,000 trees while setting an example for the country
This story is of a heroic human named Vijay Limaye, from Nagpur, who by his grit, mindfulness and innovative thinking saved close to 35,000 trees.
As we all must be aware, in Hinduism there is a belief that a human body is made up of panchtatva, the five elements of nature namely earth, water, fire, air and space. And so once the soul is liberated, the mortal remains need to be returned to the elements by consigning it to the flames. Because of this belief even today majority of people from the Hindu community in India prefer to burn the bodies of their dear ones on a funeral pyre. In this process, the main substance is ‘wood’.
If one sits and pragmatically thinks then this one ritual leads to burning of lakhs of woods every year across the country. This thought must have bothered many individuals but only one decided to do his bit to bring a change. This one person is Vijay Limaye.
When Vijay’s father passed away in the year of 2010 and he was put on fire for his last rituals, something bothered him from within. And this thought had troubled Vijay every time he attended a funeral, that if one has to do a simple math then a funeral pyre needs wood from at least two fully-grown trees which is way too much. He got desperate to explore other methods of doing cremation which can attend to the dual need – ‘Respect the age-old Hindu tradition’ and ‘Saving the environment’.
Vijay is an insurance surveyor and loss assessor in the central Indian city of Nagpur. During his work travels in various states, he started visiting crematoriums to see if there were any alternatives to wood.
First Big Idea – Cow Dung Cakes for Funeral
While visiting some parts of west and central India, he found his answer where he discovered that the body is burnt on a pyre made of cow dung cakes.
Vijay convinced the Nagpur Municipal Corporation (“NMC”), a local civic body, to run a pilot project at one of the 14 crematoriums in the city. At the same time, through his team at his NGO 'Eco-Friendly Living Foundation', he started spreading awareness to avoid the use of wood for cremations. For this, he used to conduct lectures at several public places, institutions and colleges.
Despite the fact that the NMC was offering wood free of cost for funeral pyres, Vijay was able to persuade people to opt for dung cakes. But very soon he hit a roadblock. The suppliers of the cow dung started demanding exorbitant prices per dung cakes that changed minds of the people again.
That pushed Vijay against the wall to think what was needed was something that is both affordable and sustainable in terms of demand and raw material used.
Jackpot Idea
On fine day, Vijay was passing by an agriculture field on fire. It is a common sight in the country, particularly the hinterland, as the farmers choose the easy way out to get rid of the crop residue before next sowing. That rang a bell in his head. He released that the logic was simple. Crop residue is burnt any which ways in our country. So why not use this for cremation and that would save lakhs of trees.
Now the idea was ready all he needed was a practical implementation of the idea. He came up with a model briquette that could replace wood for cremation.
He started spending at least 3-4 hours at the cremation ground. And once a week, he would convince a family to use briquettes and with that he diligently started noting down the time and quantity of briquettes required to burn the body completely.
After some trial and error, a briquette made of either soybean, arhar dal (split pigeon peas) or cotton crop residue was found to be the right combination.
After 13-14 cremations, he finally got the desirable result. Vijay named it mokshakashtha (translated into ‘wood for salvation’) as the briquettes resemble wood.
After achieving desired results, Vijay took the idea of briquettes replacing dung cakes to the then Nagpur Mayor Praveen Datke, who had already given a green signal to the use of dung cakes in cremations.
Vijay was given an opportunity to run another pilot project for 3 years at the same crematorium. NMC offered a 100 percent subsidy on cremations using briquettes and during this time almost 60 percent of the bodies were cremated using mokshakashtha. In September last year, Limaye’s non-profit was given five more crematoriums for two years. In all, in the last 3 years, almost 18,000 bodies were cremated using mokshakashtha.
Vijay said that “One funeral pyre needs approximately 250-300 kgs wood. Two trees of 18-20 years age are needed to obtain this much wood. With this calculation, we can easily claim to have saved more than 36,000 adult trees.”
This is a huge achievement that can be credited to Vijay and to NMC for being considerate and supporting the innovative thinking of its local.
What could change if agro-waste is used for briquettes?
The use of agro-waste for briquettes would result in multiple co-benefits. The farmers would able to dispose of the crop residue in a better manner. The soil remains healthy as burning crop residue was destroying the soil quality and fertility. The crusher, collection and then briquette making all would also generate employment opportunities for the locals.
It would be a win-win from all directions.
And most importantly, people can cremate their dead ones without the guilt of felling trees.
