We are living in an “Also and Also” world (Richard Saul Wurman)- Technology has its place and so does natural systems. Composting is a natural process – it’s been perfected by the universe and natural systems in a profoundly evolutionary way. I asked what do I need to do to it, to make it part of everyone's behaviour? (in India, in Bangalore to start with- not the world) If I can achieve this being mindful of the whole system that waste in India is located in - then what should the design be - of the product? Everyone I spoke to, said it would not stick, no Indian would be willing to do this, it was a dirty process. So I began with a product that did not look dirty but was also ordinary, so unthreatening that it would seem like nothing at all. I wanted to create something that was so “ordinary” that it would fly under the radar of the grandmasters of waste - the municipality, contractors, experts and naysayers. It would not be perceived as a threat, so it had greater chances of being adopted without being snuffed out pre-maturely by some large technological promise or a large business imperative. I was willing to accept uncertainty, and being ready to participate and learn from the first prototypes in the market with the hunch that the inherent beauty of a natural process and urgency of keeping 60% out of landfills will finally find some traction.

Also terracotta after my initial tests with materials - was the best material to support the decomposition process. Plastic didn't breathe. Because terracotta had no perceived value, was heavy and fragile I had to design around our "convenience" hang-up. - Design had to build value in the face of these factors. The beauty of the material and the hand crafted form helped take composting away from the “yuck” backyard space to the “cool” garden space. Our customers again and again showed us that they preferred this “heavy” “fragile” product over the plastic DIY versions, only because they could see a value even though they found it hard to articulate the reasons. I suspect that reasons are to do with a part of us that respects the labour of the hand, the connections between natural cycles and the magic of composting happening in the bowels of a mud pot.

We can all personally own and enjoy a window into this natural process - we can dig our hands into the pile and feel the heat and generate our own understanding of ourselves, the earth - why should a designer stifle this window and dress it with something else? The design question was - how can a designer enlarge it?

The economies and technology of small production have stood the test of time and worked for India - especially in the area of crafts. Now with the global changes, it was important to see if our work could do something for these gifted artisans that ensured they had access to more than just “orders”. Over the past 8 years, they have grown in wealth but in the next 10 years we want to co-create a more robust platform for them to do business. For this it is important composting goes national and we can involve more potters across the country to get the critical mass to build something that benefits them in a transformative way.

I began with the idea of open source and used the creative commons attribution, share-alike and non-commercial licence. Over time I found that people equated the idea of open-source with “free”. Not understanding that the commercialisation of our designs meant a fee to be paid to us. We spent so many hours supporting requests that our financial sustainability was threatened. We also had experiences when interns went off with our research work and cited it is their own. So after 8 years of sharing our drawings and sharing our time we decided to re-look at how we have to deal with the freeloading “copiers” who do not want to pay a single paisa. Now we have a formal partner relationship process in place, and this works.