00:01Asian elephants, Bengal tigers, Indian leopards and peacocks all roam the Muthumalai Tiger Reserve
00:11and attract a lot of tourists to Tamil Nadu.
00:14But as visitor numbers have grown, so too has the amount of waste left behind.
00:21Nestled in the buffer zone of the reserve, the small village of Masinagudi
00:26struggled to manage and recycle the growing amounts of garbage.
00:30So local residents took matters into their own hands.
00:37In 2008, we registered at Masinagudi's Nature's Club.
00:41In this area, we had a very good concept.
00:45We had a lot of cleaning and mask cleaning.
00:50We had a lot of wildlife.
00:53We had a lot of wildlife.
00:55We had a lot of wildlife.
01:00The NGO is funded by the local government and a private company.
01:04Work begins at 7am.
01:07Each morning, the manager assigns specific areas for the team to cover.
01:13The waste is collected and transported directly to a processing facility.
01:24The waste is weighed and sorted into different categories, including various types of plastic, cardboard, paper and other non-recyclable
01:34materials.
01:39Some of the waste gets a second life and is upcycled into new products.
01:47Organic waste is turned into natural compost without the use of chemicals.
01:56Plastics are compressed, baled and stored, then repurposed for use as road construction materials.
02:06Twice a month, a team from neighbouring Udaga Mandalam collects the sorted recyclables.
02:33The NGO's work has been welcomed by local residents.
02:59The village once faced frequent human-wildlife conflict, a situation exacerbated by the piles of unmanaged waste.
03:07Bears regularly entered the village and occasionally elephants attacked people.
03:12Today, wildlife rarely ventures into the village.
03:15In just six months, the NGO has collected and processed nearly 70% of the village's waste.
03:22But the work is far from over.
03:24Efforts like these support local development, but also help protect the environment and the wildlife, on which many local livelihoods
03:32depend.
03:37They have to learn to make sure to link up the surface of the village as well and can be
03:38used as a child for reward.
03:38So, the NGO has minimized the military to salvage.
03:38The NGO has beenивать the government, providing the government to train on their work.
03:38So, the NGO has been translated into the NGO's work.
