Towards Green Gurukul, Plastic Free Gurukul

Highlight of this year's Student's Committee inauguration has been the declaration of the Campus Management and Environment Committee of a Plastic Free Gurukul. Gurukul Director Dr. P. Manoharan and Principal Dr. Sam W. Meshack, highly appreciated the project. Gurukul Campus has been blessed with green trees all through the year and you get a wonderful green panoramic view from the roof top. However, the ground reality has been different. Gurukul lost much of its ground for the new constructions and what ever little ground remains has been losing its beauty due to various reasons. One main reason has been the poor waste management. Now a days most of the waste is created by the increased use of plastic. It destroys the beauty and quality of the land, choke drainage systems and is good breeding place for mosquitoes. The case is almost same in several of the cities in India, not only cities but even holy pilgrimage centers like Sabarimala, or tourist places like Manali are all ravaged by plastic carry bags, water bottles, fast food sachets and other things.Sometimes it seems impossible for us to get rid of plastics. Plastic has been certainly a blessing in several respects, it made our life easy and comfortable and now it has become a great menace. One way to deal with this problem to make it reusable and to find new usages for the waste plastic, for example to mix it with tar in the construction of roads, a method used in the construction of Kerala roads. States like Kerala has banned plastics with less than 50 microns. Metropolitan Chrysostom of the Mar Thoma Church declared the head quarters of the Church in Tiruvalla a plastic free zone. Now Gurukul's effort to make it plastic free has to be appreciated. The Environment committee has an uphill task to make it a reality. The Staff Advisor Dr. David Udayakumar and the Student Convenor Mr. S. Naveen Kumar of the Environment Committee need all our support in this most necessary green project. The committee plans to entrust each class the responsibility to take care of certain area of Gurukul campus and keep it clean and green through out the year and plant new tree. Also they declared a prize for the best maintained plot. Two years back Gurukul spend almost a lac of Rupees to purchase pot plants and most of them are now lost. However, we hope that Gurukul will be more successful this time with the student initiative.

Six other student Committees presented their plans for the year. There was community dinner following the inaugural meeting.
If you need more information and world wide news on environmental protection go to the blog "Environment and climate Change "