Organic Waste Converters in Ghodbunder Road, Thane.

A Ghodbunder Road township of several hundred flats produces enough kitchen waste to run a composter every day, and most layouts were handed over with one. Many have since stopped: a machine sized for full occupancy running half-empty, nobody trained to operate it, compost with nowhere to go. We check what the society actually generates, repair or resize the unit, train the housekeeping staff, and route the compost into the layout's own gardens, so the machine has a job residents can see.

Ghodbunder Road runs north-west from Majiwada to Gaimukh, where it climbs through the ghat towards Mira-Bhayandar and the Western Express Highway. For much of its length the hills of Sanjay Gandhi National Park rise on one side, and the land falls away on the other towards the creek and its mangroves. Between the two, farmland and village land have become towers and gated townships, Manpada, Waghbil and Owale are now names of residential neighbourhoods as much as villages. The Metro Line 4 viaduct runs along the road, and service roads, flyovers and widening have followed it. The corridor is still filling in.