A lakh and twenty thousand litres of water with harmful chemicals is what an average 4 person Indian household releases into the ground every year, contaminating our soil, killing organic life forms for ever, and water bodies.

Now, consider an apartment block with 200 homes. The figure swells to 24 million litres annually, rendering our soils incapable of decomposing organic matter that supports plant life and therefore animals and therefore us. Worse, some of these contaminants find their way into ground water and lakes, not just choking aquatic life but also altering the chemical composition of water.

This is what we do through our everyday actions of bathing, washing dishes, doing laundry, cleaning bathrooms and floors using products with harmful chemicals. We do this unconsciously, without realising that we are not just making our homes free from dirt but also useful bacteria, critical for the soil and existence—a case of throwing the baby out along with the bath water.

Living far from nature in urban jungles, most of us have lost our connection to the earth and the interconnectedness of all living organisms. We learnt in school that the cycling of nutrients such as carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur in the soil is completed only due to the ceaseless labour of bacteria.

The effort of Lagom is to try and bring about change, one household at a time–making people conscious and encouraging them to move to non-chemical alternatives. At Lagom we believe that every action, however small, matters. Eventually, they all add up.

In Mahatma Gandhi’s words, “be the change you wish to see in the world”. These words resonate deeply with the goal of LAGOM—to reach 1,000 households in one year, and ensure at least 100 million litres of water is contaminant free.