Chandigarh: With a first of its kind initiative, 75 Schools organized “Plastic Mukt Chandigarh” activity today under the ‘Swachh Amrit Mahotsav’ campaign.
The students collected waste plastic items/products from their houses and deposited them with the school authorities, which further handed over the collected plastic waste to the Municipal Corporation authorities for scientific disposal of the same. The students also pledged to adopt plastic-free practices in their households and school premises.
While sharing about this initiative, Ms. Anindita Mitra, IAS, Commissioner, Municipal Corporation Chandigarh said that to completely ban single-use plastic products, the students of 75 upper primary government as well as private schools at Chandigarh took out this activity aiming mass awareness to educate people about hazardous effects of plastic products.
She said that as almost every household in the city has at least one school going student and the message of avoiding plastic products will reach everyone to make Chandigarh free from pollution of single use plastic.
The Commissioner said that schools are directly associated with parents, students and indirectly with the community. Thus, the onus was on the school to lead from the forefront in achieving the target to sustainable development goals. All stakeholders, including students, parents, staff members, their friends and relatives, visitors to the school campus, have been involved in an extensive campaign highlighting the negative impact of low-quality plastic products.
She further said that the students have especially been appealed not to use polythene bags and have been encouraged to use food-grade plastic tiffin and water bottles, if not thermosteel tiffin and water bottles. She said that the schools should organize exhibitions on training the students in paper bag making, emphasizing the aspect of reusing waste newspapers etc
1200 kgs of plastic waste was collected in one day which shall be sorted and stacked in the MRF centres. The Commissioner further said that the proposal for setting up a Plastic Waste Management Plant was being placed before the General House meeting of the month.