UTTAR PRADESH JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY

Developing sustainable cities and communities is the 11th sustainable development goal of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Its aim is to make self-resilient, self-reliable, eco-friendly cities in the world. People have been moving from villages to cities as a result of India's rapid industrialization and population growth, placing an excessive burden on urban public services like municipal solid waste management, sewage waste management, and providing chemical-free organic food due to inadequate resources and the shortcomings of the current systems. In the 21st century, earthworms are considered to play the most important role in terms of biodegradation of sewage wastewater, urban organic municipal waste, agro-industrial waste, and agricultural waste. In view of this, the present study aims to identify sustainable approaches, i.e., vermitechnology, in order to establish sustainable cities and communities that utilize earthworms under several categories like vermicomposting (to manage organic waste), vermifiltration (treatment of industrial and municipal wastewater), vermin-remediation (to recover contaminated soil), vermin-agroproduction (to produce chemical-free organic food), and vermin-industrial production (producing useful raw materials from earthworms) that could provide an eco-friendly and healthy environment to the people. However, there are certain factors that pose a serious threat to earthworm populations, like agricultural practices, climate change, contamination of soil, loss of habitat, and introduction of exotic species of earthworms into the Indian ecosystem. Hence, the Government of India could find suitable solutions to address these issues in order to develop sustainable communities.