Students roped in to remove plastic waste from Ganga ghats

PATNA: The Bihar State Pollution Control Board (BSPCB) has roped in school and college students to remove plastic waste from eight Ganga ghats in the city in the run up to the World Environment Day on June 5. The United Nations (UN) has made ‘Beat Plastic Pollution’ the theme for this year’s World Environment Day.
Students from seven institutions – St Paul’s High School, Army Public School, D A V BSEB Colony, Patna Women’s College, Government Women’s College (Gulzarbagh), Patna Central School and Tarumitra – have been roped in by the BSPCB to clean Digha ghat, Pipapul ghat at Danapur, Gaighat, Collectorate ghat, Krishna ghat, Pathri ghat, Kali ghat and Gandhi ghat on separate days. The students will be awarded a ‘certificate of participation’ by BSPCB and the ministry of environment and forests on the final day of the programme on June 5.

Altogether 250 students of Army Public School participated in the plastic cleaning mission on the second day of the drive on Friday. Students from senior classes cleaned Pipapul ghat from 7.30am to 10am. Students, who were provided gloves and t-shirts by the BSPCB, picked up plastic waste from the ghats, which were then loaded on the dumpers provided by the Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC).

“We have roped in schoolchildren for the job as they are more receptive towards behavioural change that is necessary to eliminate the use of plastic,” BSPCB chairman Ashok Kumar Ghosh said.

Tarumitra, Patna, has been running a similar initiative where volunteers are motivated to create something useful out of plastic waste. “We are working on building a cottage out of plastic where the bricks are pet bottles filled with plastic wrappers” Tarumitra campaign coordinator Devopriya Dutta said.