Congrats to BBMP and VVN College-Part VII

At the end of the grand event, after the speeches by the chief guests, all students were really happy to have attended such a wonderful workshop. Nagamani mam gave the vote of thanks, thanking the chief guests, students, lecturers, distinguished guests, speakers and all the supporting staff. Even the dignitaries present at the event were really happy to see that the audience which comprised majority of the youth students were interested in learning about waste segregation and management.

 

My learning from this one-day workshop is that today how small mistakes of ours are leading to huge problems which are once again attacking us back. The responsibility to keep the house clean doesn't rest only with the municipal corporation. It lies in the hands of each one of us. We have to start spreading awareness among people about how harmful it is if we don't manage waste properly and start implementing the methods required for proper waste recylcing. Each one of us will be responsible for making our environment clean and free from all sorts of pollution. Unfortunately many educated people are committing the same mistakes was a disheartening thing to hear.

 

Overall, it was a great event to learn a lot technically and also to know about how different institutions had taken up the task of recylcing their college resources very seriously. Such events should be conducted at regular intervals in different institutions so that the idea gets in deep into every citizen. I congratulate and thank BBMP for sponsoring such a programme and Prasanna Udupikar mam from VVN degree college for being the key initiator for this entire extravaganza of knowledge sharing. I hope and believe that such events recur often because the more it gets delayed the more our environment gets polluted. I have started my work of spreading awareness about waste management and segregation with people whom I meet, have you started yet? You too can if you have either attended the event or have read these 7 posts on my blog.

Congrats to BBMP and VVN College-Part VI

The cherry on the cake for the entire event was Dr.Yellappa Reddy sir who has worked in forest department and also the chairman for a prominent organization at the age of 77. He spoke about how there is no garbage in forests. Animals and birds know that the place should be clean to give birth to their children. Suzuki, an 8 year old girl had spoken about how the environment was hampered by man in last few years at Rio conference for which none of them could answer. He told that the material required for a mobile is mined in a place in Cuba and if any people revolt against it, they are severely punished by the mining company. He threw light upon how 250 granite cutting companies left sledge as waste. This harms cattle which feed upon such waste and hence the milk they produce is polluted.

 

He mentioned about a case where in two post graduate students from RV College of Engineering had swam through drainage water to get samples to present it in the court to prove the presene of dangerous mercury in the contaminated water. He mentioned that 25 to 50 gm of mercury is sufficient to kill 1,00,000 people. He mentioned one more case about women farmers in Gulbarga region who suffered due to cervix cancer and breast cancer due to pesticides used including endosulphan. He took the pollution control board, agricultural and community health departements for their carelessness who didn't test as to how these chemicals would affect humans.

 

He then explained about how death of honeybees and other insects can happen due to the sugary type of waste that we throw around in parks and public spaces. This inturn would reduce pollination and hence vegatation output would get degraded rapidly. He also mentioned about Ramagundanahalli, where in there is a tree with 700 honey combs and as a result there was an increase of 25% in the food production. He shared about an instance in chikkaballapura where 500 kids from 5 panchayats gathered together to conduct a parliamentary session and performed it to utmost perfection resulting in government granting them Rs.75,00,000 worth services.



Congrats to BBMP and VVN College-Part V

Mohan.B.N, myself took upon the stage and was disappointed ot see a lethargic audience post lunch. So I kicked off with a power-packed start to make the crowd vibrant. Then I gave a presentation about IUnewspaperbag project about we were able to make 1,00,000 newspaperbags during the month of November in association with school children who were much younger to us. Thanks to Sireesha.M.k, online presence manager of Inspiration Unlimited who made a very beautiful powerpoint presentation for the session. Then I narrated a story about a crow and a sparrow in a village and conveyed the message about how small a contribution each one of us could make only if we didn't listen to what others teased us as. The crowd was filled with enthusiasm and the aura in the auditorium was trasnformed from a silent sobre one to a power-filled one. There was a tea break after my talk during which many students and teachers congratulated my energy-filled, powerpacked talk that just inspired all of them sitting in the room. I just thanked God and my mentor for all that had happened.

 

Once we returned from the tea break, Mr.Trilokachandra who is the additional commissioner of BBMP and an IAS officer spoke about Pegovian tax levied upon the polluter in foreign countries. He also told about the extended producer responsibility that is expected from companies which generate a lot of waste. For recycling aluminium people are ready to buy waste aluminium at a cost of Rs.60/kg but it becomes a waste if mixed with food. So he also advocated for a behavioural change in one crore people living in bangalore. He also claimed that Bangalore was the first city in entire India to make it compulsory to segregate the waste at the source itself. During this talk, he asked for feedback from students and the feedback session was really filled with enthusiasm due to the previous sessions.

Congrats to BBMP and VVN College-Part IV

Smt.Radha.V.Kale explained that waste is something which is a mismanaged and misused material. Wet waste doesn't give a stinking smell when sufficient oxygen is allowed. The stinking smell is due to the reduction process only. Aerobic composture is aslways good using earthworms. 1000 earthworms can do a job that can be done by a pair of oxen. She exlpained about vermicompost. There are about 3000 species of earthworms in the whole world, while there are 300 plus species in India only. She advised about 3Is and 3Vs to the students which are 3Is- Interest, Involvement, Induction and 3vs-Vision, Venture and Victories. She also showed a video about a physically handicapped farmer who got to know about preparing compost in his farm through ITC and how he had benefitted from the same. Shoba mam from Mount Carmel College assisted during this presentation.

 

Then came Mr.Manikandan from Oxford institutions who explained about recylcing of waste water and how this project was implemented in Oxford college. He taught the students about BOD-Biological Oxygen Demand, COD-Chemical Oxygen Demand, centrifuge used to separate the waste from the water. He informed about how oxygen parlours are today charging rs.350 per hour. After his informative presentation, came upon two ladies both by name Sujatha who worked in a college to segregate waste and its management. They informed about how around 500 people were given ID cards as official waste pickers by BBMP due to the efforts of hasirudala team.

 

It was time for IU - Inspiration Unlimited to take the stage and I was all set to emblaze the crowd with the IUism unlimted energy and IUnewspaperbag project. Let's see the IU episode in the next post.

 

Congrats to BBMP and VVN College-Part III

Then came the founder of hasirudala NGO, Smt.Nalini Shekar who explained about organic and inorganic waste. Any waste which can be converted to manure is an organic waste. She explained about how hair, dust belong to wet waste. She also informed about other types of wastes such as sanitary waste, hazardous waste in CFL bulbs, construction/debry waste. She also spoke about how waste pickers can separate plastic into 17-18 different varieties of wastes and paper into 6-7 grades based on their physical properties. In bangalore, today, waste sorters, scrap traders are managing 600-800 tonnes of waste and hence are helping to reduce an expense of Rs.13,00,000 per day. In Pune, waste pickers collect waste from 55 lakh homes and hence have invested in a scrap store and are earning Rs.35,000 to Rs.40,000 as divident per year.

 

Smt. Nalini also explained about how garden waste should be managed. She advocated that college should involve in waste management and make things happen for the society's good. After her talk there was lunch break for about 40 minutes during which lots of discussions went on among students and lecturers. Then when the afternoon session resumed, Smt.Shirley from JyothiNivas college informed about AURA - go green initiative of her college and Parivarthana started by Mr.Jayakrishna who is a social entrepreneur.

 

Then came on the stage Smt.Radha.V.Kale who has served in the industry of waste management for a lot of years with an experience of 40 years and who has been the director for the research and development department as well. Let's see what she had to say in the next blog.

Congrats to BBMP and VVN College-Part II

Nylon used in betwenn polythene and polypropylene for sacks of atta is also very difficult to recycle due to difference in melting points. Plastics of certain kinds can be used as alternate fuel resources and hence replace coal. Due to overuse, even the carbon in soil has reduced to a great extent. Hence the strong message was not to mix food with plastics.

 

Then came the Mayor, Sri VenkateshMurthy who exclaimed that plastic and hospital waste have reduced the value of garbage and this must be taught by students to the public. Mavalli, Mandoor and Dhoddaballapura which are dumping yards have become horrible spots today. Adding to this, Sri. Tallam Venkatesh sir spoke about how even small help from public can help solve the problem and advised that patriotism should be instilled in children at a very young age. This was followed by a tea break where in students and teachers from other colleges started interacting about the topics discussed in the morning. Post tea-break it was Dr.Meenakshi Bharath who took the stage with her humour-filled motivating speech. She advocated the usage of public transport.

 

Coming to the waste management, she called upon every person in the hall to become the leader of their respective street since each one of them had the ability to transform. She taught about how to form a team in the community and also informed that Bangalore generated 3.5 million kg of waste every single day. She gave a presentation about segregators, composters, carbon footprint, and home-grown-food items. She called upon the youth to be honest with their work.

Congrats to BBMP and VVN College-Part I

On 21st Jan,2013 close to 300 youth of bangalore witnessed a fantastic one-day workshop about waste segregation and management which was conducted by VVN Degree college and sponsored by BBMP(Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike). Smt. Prasanna Udupikar mam was the key convener of the entire event supported by the principal of VVN degree college, Smt. Namitha. Tallam Venkatesh sir, president of VVN Trust was also present during the inauguration of the event along with VenkateshMurthy, Mayor of Bangalore.

 

The event was inaugurated by a devotional song to Lord Vinayaka and lighting of the lamps by the dignitaries. Dr.Almitra Patel who is a member of Supreme Court of India for country's municipal waste management spoke about how the waste problem started in bangalore. Till 1960 there was no waste issue in bangalore because the waste was used up by farmers for their crops but with the subsidy given for urea and introduction of plastics stopped composting and made the waste useless. Black spots got created in different parts of the city as even rag-pickers couldn't separate plastic from food. She also mentioned the use of plastic if it can be recylced and reused. Tar roads need good shredded plastic so that they become 2-3 times better. PROBES/101/2005-2006 explains as to how to use plastics and PROBES/122/2008-2009 explains about differences of roads with and without plastics.

 

In one of the incidents in Tamilnadu, a school asked the children to bring one kilogram of plastic from their home in exchange for Rs.1 pencil. 1 tonne of plastic was collected in 10 days and a fantastic road was laid. Smt.Jayalalitha who was the then chief miniter ordered to lay thousands of kilometers of similar roads and it improved rural employment. Dr.Almitra Patel mam also informed about ghatta where recycled plastics chops are made into polystyrene, polypropylene and others in Nayandanahalli, Hosaballa.