The Wipro Care trip to clean up Mutthathi was preceeded with a short corporate presentation to the volunteer group, conducted by Deepa.
This trip too does not seem to have followed the trip report format. There is a personal post by Deepa Mohan.
http://deponti.livejournal.com/468244.html
The formal notes of the Clean Up Event
On the 22nd of November, the Wipro and the Clean and Green Volunteers left rather later than usual, as the caterers did not deliver the food earlier.
Meanwhile, Roopa had spoken to the Forest Department officials regarding our use of their campus for lunch.
It was nice to meet the people from Wipro, and luckily for us, though it remained cloudy for most of the day, the rain held off. We had breakfast on the bus, and Geetha organized tea/coffee from a nearby teastall as we stopped.
However, we were in for a further delay, as the bus got diverted at Kanakapura town, due to ongoing road work; we had to crawl over very bad roads,and reached the cleanup site at 11.30 am... a record of sorts for such a cleanup I think!
Deepak and a few friends had also found the going pretty rough but had got there by car and were waiting for us.
I gave the volunteers a short talk about C'n'G and our objectives, and also about how to segregate and collect the plastic. Rakes, sacks and gloves were unpacked and the volunteers fanned out and set to work. I must say that in my opinion, the picnic area trash has come down in volume.
Once the work was under way, Deepak, Anush, and I went to Bheemeshwari and met Mr Sundar Raj (landline 08231 694248/695249/218252/ 218232, mobile no. 94495 99768, email: Sunder@gmail.com) , the Resident Manager of JLR, and told him that the sacks would be ready for collection in a couple of hours' time. He said that he would send a jeep at about 5.30pm.
Mr Sundar made the suggestion that instead of concentrating on repeated cleanups, C'n'G could change its approach. He said that for Rs.6000 p.m, he could organize the local tribals to patrol the area and clean up the litter regularly, and the practice of collection by JLR and delivery to KK Plastics could continue, and that he could supervise this.
He pointed out that probably the cost of that day's cleanup was more for Wipro; so, if we could organize a regular supply of money from the corporates, it would be a sustainable way of dealing with the trash. Deepak feels that this should not pose a problem at all. I think we should meet and have a discussion about this, and if we really can organize a regular source, then putting the tribals to work on a daily basis would certainly be a better solution than repeated cleanups. We have to work out the modalities of how to get the money, and also, how to disburse it in the most effective way possible.
After about two and a half hours, we called a halt to the trash collection, and the sacks were stitched up and weighed; a total of 167 kgs was the day's collection. I must say that the Wipro volunteers showed a lot of enthusiasm! It was great to work with them. The rakes, sacks and gloves were packed away (Roopa, do let us know where they are being stored now...are they with you?)
Roopa spoke to several of the Forest Department officials, and the locals also. can give the details of her conversation. The Forest Department was supportive, as always.
We all walked to the Forest Department campus where lunch was served and eaten;in spite of the caterer's warnings that lunch should be consumed at 12.15, the food was still perfectly good at nearly 3pm!
Many of the volunteers then opted for the pleasant walk (4 km) from Muthathi to Bheemeshwari, and the others packed up the food, and came in the bus, picking up anyone who was tiring, on the road. It was delightful to walk down, and Anush and I managed to spot several birds as well, and I had earlier seen a couple of mongooses on the path too, so it was truly a Nature walk!
The way back proved slightly less tortuous, but still the diversion at Kanakapura took some time. We stopped to have tea/coffee at Harohalli, and came home, tired but happy with what we have achieved, at about 7pm.
Sandeep Sanwal of Wipro has already joined the egroup as a C'n'G volunteer. I am sending a separate email to Geetha to be forwarded to the volunteers, giving the details of how to join the egroup, and where to upload the photographs that one volunteer took. I have already uploaded the photographs I took to the C'n'G Photobucket site and have forwarded them to Geetha too.
We must all thank Geetha for a lot of hard work that she put into this day's outing; I think the food, in particular, cost her a lot of effort! But she not only did a great job, but was smiling through it all, even though she has a tremendous backlog of work to address!
Looking forward to getting more volunteers to strengthen our hands, and hoping that the next meeting will bring about more fruitful solutions to the ever-present problem of trash,
This trip too does not seem to have followed the trip report format. There is a personal post by Deepa Mohan.
http://deponti.livejournal.com/468244.html
The formal notes of the Clean Up Event
On the 22nd of November, the Wipro and the Clean and Green Volunteers left rather later than usual, as the caterers did not deliver the food earlier.
Meanwhile, Roopa had spoken to the Forest Department officials regarding our use of their campus for lunch.
It was nice to meet the people from Wipro, and luckily for us, though it remained cloudy for most of the day, the rain held off. We had breakfast on the bus, and Geetha organized tea/coffee from a nearby teastall as we stopped.
However, we were in for a further delay, as the bus got diverted at Kanakapura town, due to ongoing road work; we had to crawl over very bad roads,and reached the cleanup site at 11.30 am... a record of sorts for such a cleanup I think!
Deepak and a few friends had also found the going pretty rough but had got there by car and were waiting for us.
I gave the volunteers a short talk about C'n'G and our objectives, and also about how to segregate and collect the plastic. Rakes, sacks and gloves were unpacked and the volunteers fanned out and set to work. I must say that in my opinion, the picnic area trash has come down in volume.
Once the work was under way, Deepak, Anush, and I went to Bheemeshwari and met Mr Sundar Raj (landline 08231 694248/695249/218252/ 218232, mobile no. 94495 99768, email: Sunder@gmail.com) , the Resident Manager of JLR, and told him that the sacks would be ready for collection in a couple of hours' time. He said that he would send a jeep at about 5.30pm.
Mr Sundar made the suggestion that instead of concentrating on repeated cleanups, C'n'G could change its approach. He said that for Rs.6000 p.m, he could organize the local tribals to patrol the area and clean up the litter regularly, and the practice of collection by JLR and delivery to KK Plastics could continue, and that he could supervise this.
He pointed out that probably the cost of that day's cleanup was more for Wipro; so, if we could organize a regular supply of money from the corporates, it would be a sustainable way of dealing with the trash. Deepak feels that this should not pose a problem at all. I think we should meet and have a discussion about this, and if we really can organize a regular source, then putting the tribals to work on a daily basis would certainly be a better solution than repeated cleanups. We have to work out the modalities of how to get the money, and also, how to disburse it in the most effective way possible.
After about two and a half hours, we called a halt to the trash collection, and the sacks were stitched up and weighed; a total of 167 kgs was the day's collection. I must say that the Wipro volunteers showed a lot of enthusiasm! It was great to work with them. The rakes, sacks and gloves were packed away (Roopa, do let us know where they are being stored now...are they with you?)
Roopa spoke to several of the Forest Department officials, and the locals also. can give the details of her conversation. The Forest Department was supportive, as always.
We all walked to the Forest Department campus where lunch was served and eaten;in spite of the caterer's warnings that lunch should be consumed at 12.15, the food was still perfectly good at nearly 3pm!
Many of the volunteers then opted for the pleasant walk (4 km) from Muthathi to Bheemeshwari, and the others packed up the food, and came in the bus, picking up anyone who was tiring, on the road. It was delightful to walk down, and Anush and I managed to spot several birds as well, and I had earlier seen a couple of mongooses on the path too, so it was truly a Nature walk!
The way back proved slightly less tortuous, but still the diversion at Kanakapura took some time. We stopped to have tea/coffee at Harohalli, and came home, tired but happy with what we have achieved, at about 7pm.
Sandeep Sanwal of Wipro has already joined the egroup as a C'n'G volunteer. I am sending a separate email to Geetha to be forwarded to the volunteers, giving the details of how to join the egroup, and where to upload the photographs that one volunteer took. I have already uploaded the photographs I took to the C'n'G Photobucket site and have forwarded them to Geetha too.
We must all thank Geetha for a lot of hard work that she put into this day's outing; I think the food, in particular, cost her a lot of effort! But she not only did a great job, but was smiling through it all, even though she has a tremendous backlog of work to address!
Looking forward to getting more volunteers to strengthen our hands, and hoping that the next meeting will bring about more fruitful solutions to the ever-present problem of trash,
