Workshop on Waste Management

Continuing our green practices at School and encouraging students to be greenizens, a workshop was conducted with The Nirmalaya group, a group of IIT students. Ultimately, the only sustainable solution to Indias waste problem is not funding and infrastructure but changing the mindset of citizens, they said.

The aim of this group is to nurture socially and environmentally active future citizens by engaging our students in a hands- on environmental workshop on waste management in India, the 3 Rs (reduce , reuse and recycle) and composting.

The workshop began with a presentation to show what waste consists of. Things like plastic, glass, leftover food etc is all dumped in a common place and not segregated. Through a series of exciting videos, students were shown the Ghazipur landfill, how waste is collected in different cities and how, if, everyone takes responsibility, we can bring about a change in the ways we manage waste in our country.

The students were divided into groups for various fun filled activities that made learning about waste management easy and pleasurable. The students were given mystery bags in which there were random objects like a leaf, a bulb, an empty bottle etc . They had to share how they would reuse/ recycle these, rather than throwing away as waste. The resource persons conducted a quiz in which the students had to memorise the data on certain posters shown to them within a minute and then answer the questions. Both the activities were judged and the winners were awarded certificates.

Finally the students were shown the compost that has been set up next to the School playground. It was then demonstrated how to prepare the pit for making compost and what all is to be added to enable the compost to get ready.

The workshop was very exciting and taught the students to segregate and manage waste, starting from home and School.