Highlights
- Civic body circular recommends all students take pledge to segregate waste
- Blue, green bins will be installed in school, college premises
- Aim is to make children major stakeholders in Swachh Bharat Abhiyan
New Delhi: Calling school kids as the swachhta ambassadors, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) recently issued a circular across all schools and colleges of the city requesting the authorities of the educational institution to include an oath of cleanliness during prayer time. As per the guidelines mentioned in the circular, all the students must pledge to segregate waste into dry and wet garbage, avoid littering and help the city to reduce its overall garbage generation. The letters were circulated after the Health and Solid Waste Management (SWM) Department of BBMP that took the decision of making children major stakeholders in Centre’s Swachh Bharat Abhiyan initiative.
To achieve this (cleanliness), awareness should be created among the citizens to segregate waste at source. We want to involve the young citizens, the students, in this endeavour. The Hon’ble High Court of Karnataka has also emphasised the persuasive role of students in making their parents practice segregation at source, read an excerpt from the circular.
The civic body has recommended several other steps to be taken by the educational institutions. For instance, to put the concept of waste segregation into practice, blue and green bins will be installed in school and college premises. “It is important that the next generation starts separating waste at an early age. And seeing fellow classmates put dry and wet waste in separate bins, each student will be motivated to do the same. Once this becomes a habit at school, students will gradually implement it in their respective homes as well,” said Sarfaraz Khan, Joint Commissioner, SWM, BBMP.
To ensure that students are following waste segregation, the civic body has asked the authorities to appoint ‘swachhta monitors’ who will keep an eye on their classmates and update their teachers accordingly.
To help students understand the mechanisms followed by BBMP once the garbage is collected from households, the officials have also offered the educational institutes to organise visits to their dry waste collecting centres and bio-methanisation centres as part of their field trips. The objective behind this exercise is that it wants the workers to share their experiences about recycling garbage. All this is to make students realise that a simple act of segregation can have far reaching effects on garbage landfills.
A discussion on cleanliness was organised in a Bengaluru school
The civic body has also appealed to teachers to integrate waste management lessons in their education system. From showing documentaries that highlight stark facts of garbage crisis in India, conducting debates and essay writing competitions on waste management to organising drawing competitions, these are some of the ways that BBMP has recommended.
Under the ‘My Waste, My Responsibility’ initiative, we are visiting all schools and colleges and urging them to identify 1 kilo metre of road, which can be anywhere in school, playground, park or their housing society, and maintain cleanliness on their stretch, said Dr Sandhya, Medical Health Officer, BBMP.
Also Read: Even Leftover Water From Bottles Not Wasted In This Bengaluru School
