Children 'wake up' to scientific management of solid waste

To help children understand the gravity of the garbage problem in the City, several schools have been sending their students to the ‘Wake Up, Clean Up Bengaluru’ event.

Hundreds of school students and visitors attended the event, being held at Freedom Park since February 3, to see the great mock landfill created by bringing tonnes of waste from a very real landfill outside the City.

Visitors recoiled at the stench, and a presentation of loud wailing noises, produced in tandem with a grave, flickering light show at the information corridor multimedia gallery, sent shivers down their spines. Despite the creepy ambience surrounding the event, however, hundreds of people have been thronging to see the landfill.

Raising awareness

To create awareness about garbage segregation, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), in association with Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB) and Bangalore Connect, has organised an array of activities for students. The amphitheatre which is usually vacant on most days, has been teeming with students in the last two days. Street plays conveying the message on waste management have been arranged here on a regular basis.

“We have learned about the importance of garbage segregation. The street play was not just entertaining but also informative. We discovered how dry waste can be recycled and how wet waste can be converted into compost,” said several enthusiastic students from the Inventure Academy International School, Varthur.

Other fun competitions arranged for children involved painting, collage-making and creative writing. Most activities revolve round the topic of waste management. “Children who take part in these will positively spread the message to everyone back home,” said Hema, a teacher at the BBMP school in Banganagar.

“We will also take the responsibility of reinforcing this message through our daily conversations with children in our schools,” she said. The students from the Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology are actively involved in the painting of murals. “The Palike has tied up with our college to make murals for waste collection centres across the City,” said Shobha Bhat, a student from the institute and called on the public to join them.

“The murals will later be installed in three dry-waste collection centres: Freedom Park, Koramangala and Anandnagar,” she explained.

R Nandish, a magician and mimicry artiste from Yeshwantpur, who performs four to five magic shows a day at the Park told Deccan Herald that he has included the message of effective waste management in his shows. “Through my show, I tell the viewers to minimise the use of plastics and also, how garbage can potentially be turned into gold.”