It’s a lot easier for most people to whine and complain about the deteriorating conditions of our surroundings. It’s a completely different ballgame when someone takes it upon themselves to change that. 22 December, 2011 saw eleventh grade students of Fergusson College collect 53kgs in plastic waste.

Susan Raj, co-founder of NGO, The Academic Advisors (TAA), who organised the initiative, intends to make Pune a plastic-garbage free city. Easier said than done. For this Herculean task, Susan knew she was going to need all the help she could get. With that in mind, she began approaching colleges, scheduling meetings to discuss her game plan. Today, students across schools and colleges in Pune are motivated in spreading awareness and helping with this eco message.

The last drive that Susan organised saw over 120 students participate from Fergusson College alone. This time, the number of students enrolled exceeded expectations. She is ecstatic that the initiative has now been accepted by three college campuses in the city.

“I joined the ‘Garbage Force’ in October 2010, because garbage made me feel uncomfortable. I realised that schools and colleges could do more to help this cause. Education institutes are the hub of change and they were working only at the periphery. That’s how the ‘Schools & Colleges for Plastic-Garbage Free Pune’ came about,” says Susan.

Under the Plastic Free Pune Drive project, students participate in cleanliness drives every two weeks. “Since Environmental Studies (EVS) is one of the compulsory subjects in the curriculum with 40 marks for assignments and project work, most of the students tend to scour the Internet for information and hand in project reports,” explains Susan, “Teachers also find it burdensome to think about realistic lesson plans. That’s where we step in by giving them an option which will be managed by us and teachers can assign marks for the same,” she says.

According to Susan, “A family of five will produce 500 grams of garbage everyday and 100 grams will have plastic garbage in it. That means, one student can get up to three kilograms of plastic from home per month and a class of 70 students can get 210kg per month and a school with 1,000 students can get around three tons per month. If we cover 1,200 educational institutes we will actually see tangible results. Plastic bags will not be flying around,” she believes.

Two colleges have already enrolled with this programme. 126 students of Fergusson College’s from the eleventh grade are participating, 100 National Service Scheme (NSS) students from Vidya Bhavan College of Commerce have already made three collections. TAA was invited by Wadia College but couldn’t initiate the project due to a lack of EVS faculty.

 Yogeshchandra Sayanakar, a 28-year-old old ex-army major is TAA’s newest recruit who is devoted to helping make Pune plastic garbage free. “My task is to expand the reach of the programme by visiting schools and colleges, meeting with principals and working out a schedule in conjunction with the school and TAA to initiate the programme,” says Yogesh.

“I recently got involved with TAA. Having attended the orientation, I knew instantly that I wanted to volunteer for this project,” says Astha Gaur, a 20-year-old third-year law student from Symbiosis.

Astha is enthusiastic about the results, “The aim of this project is to make sure that the plastic waste does not go to places where it will harm life in any way. Another programme that we work with is a project to save river water from being polluted by waste from the city,” she says.

Susan is determined when she says, “For TAA, it is education, environment and empowerment. We will continue to work towards it. We want to see reverse migration happening along the riverside villages, to begin with, because the polluted rivers have forced them to migrate towards cities. We want to see villages with a stronger economy than a city. We will continue to network with all those who have a similar vision.”

Currently TAA is associated with more than 70 NGOs and these numbers are likely to grow.

Aims of Plastic Garbage Free Pune

>> To create a new generation of students who are sensitised with a practical involvement in the project

>> To reduce the amount of plastic waste in the city

>> To introduce the practice of separating garbage

>> To provide information about various types of wastes and its management

>> To curb waste being dumped into the rivers and help stimulate the growth of vegetation

>> To purify ground water and reduce health hazards for humans and animals