Shreya's Seven Days of Scraps

A personalised storybook starring Shreya, age 10

For the International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste, Shreya turns her family's kitchen scraps into a science project. She tapes up a ledger, weighs peels and eggshells every day for a week, and on Saturday tips the whole pile into a terracotta pot to start a balcony composter. Over three weeks she watches red wriggler worms transform her family's waste into rich, dark soil, discovering that trash and treasure are sometimes the same thing.

Cover of Shreya's Seven Days of Scraps
Shreya's Seven Days of Scraps — illustration for page 1

Shreya taped a big chart to the fridge with seven empty columns, one for each day of the week. At the top she wrote FOOD LOSS AND WASTE DAY in her best marker handwriting. Her mother raised an eyebrow over her morning chai. "You're turning our kitchen into a laboratory?" Shreya nodded seriously. "Every peel counts, Mumma. Today is September twenty-ninth. The whole world is thinking about food waste, and I'm going to actually do something about ours."

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Shreya's Seven Days of Scraps — illustration for page 2

Monday's onion skins went on the kitchen scale first, curling like little orange ribbons. Forty grams, Shreya wrote in the first column. Tuesday brought potato peels and a fistful of used tea leaves, still steaming faintly. Wednesday was eggshells, cracked and chalky white. Each night she weighed the day's scraps before dinner was even finished cooking, sneaking the bowl past her little brother, who kept trying to add his broccoli "by accident."

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Shreya's Seven Days of Scraps — illustration for page 3

By Thursday, the numbers were climbing steadily up the chart, and Shreya's grandmother started saving her carrot tops specially in a small steel bowl by the sink. "For your project," she said with a wink, as if she were in on a secret. Shreya loved that everyone in the house had quietly joined her mission, even without being asked. Friday's column filled with cucumber ends and the papery skin of three onions.

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Shreya's Seven Days of Scraps — illustration for page 4

Saturday morning arrived with the scale reading a grand total of one point four kilograms. Shreya carried the whole week's collection in a big steel tub out to the balcony, where a wide terracotta pot sat waiting in the corner, already layered with crackly dry leaves her father had swept up from under the neem tree. She tipped the scraps in slowly, watching them settle over the leaves like a strange, colorful blanket.

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Shreya's Seven Days of Scraps — illustration for page 5

"Now for the tricky part," said her father, holding out a small paper packet. Inside wriggled a tangle of thin red worms, no longer than her pinky finger. Shreya jumped back a little. "They're going to live in there? With the peels?" Her father laughed. "They're going to eat the peels. Red wrigglers can turn scraps into soil faster than almost anything else. Give them three weeks, and you'll see." Shreya wasn't sure she believed him, but she tipped them in anyway.

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Shreya's Seven Days of Scraps — illustration for page 6

Every few days, Shreya checked the pot, half expecting a horrible rotten smell to hit her. Instead, when she leaned close on day nine, it smelled surprisingly like the ground after rain. The pile had sunk lower and turned darker at the edges. She stirred it gently with a stick the way her father had shown her, careful not to squash a single worm, and covered it again with a handful of dry leaves to keep it cozy and dark.

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Shreya's Seven Days of Scraps — illustration for page 7

On the twenty-first day, Shreya knelt by the pot and dug in with a small trowel, and there it was — no peels, no eggshells, no tea leaves at all. Just soft, dark, crumbly soil that smelled rich and earthy, like the forest floor. She scooped a handful and let it fall through her fingers, grinning. Her one point four kilograms of kitchen scraps had disappeared completely, turned into something her mother's tomato plant would practically drink up.

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Shreya's Seven Days of Scraps — illustration for page 8

That evening, Shreya patted the new soil around the base of the balcony tomato plant, and her grandmother added a pinch more from the pot for good luck. The chart still hung on the fridge, its seven columns now proof of something bigger than numbers. "We didn't throw any of it away," Shreya said proudly. "We just gave it time." Her mother smiled and hugged her, humus-dusted hands and all.

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