Oracle Trip to Clean : After a Year's Break : 12 Sep 2009

Date: September 12 2009. Place: Muthathi

Number of Volunteers that participated: 56


Oracle India kicked off their World Wide Volunteer Week of 2009 on a drizzling day on 12th September from Oracle office, at 8:10 AM for a Clean up Drive. This year the location was Muthathi, 100 Kms from Bangalore under the forest, this place is one of the favourite places for picnickers.

52 people from all walks of life, Oracle Employees, their friends and volunteers from Clean and Green participated in the trip. The team stopped for breakfast 15kms away from Kanakapura. The team reached Muthathi around 11:30 AM. After a brief from Sandeep to the volunteers about the clean-up, volunteers formed small teams.

With rakes, gunny bags and gloves in their hands volunteers were collecting and segregating plastic under 3 categories and bringing loads of plastic in gunny bags to the team doing stuffing and stitching.At 3:00 in afternoon all the volunteers had lunch at a cool place provided by the forest officials and took some rest. Sandeep gave a brief about Clean N Green group and what efforts we are putting to attain a sustainable solution to keep the famous picnic spot Clean and Green. Then all volunteers gathered to check the amount of the plastics collected before leaving back to Bangalore at around 4:30PM.

Highlights of the Trip:
4 cement rings sponsored by Oracle India Pvt Ltd
Painted the Cement rings

Kinds of Plastic Collected: Water Bottles, Toffee Wrappers, Ghutka Wrappers and other variants of it, Ice-Cream cups, plates, food content wrappers, soft drink bottles, soft drink cups.
Amount of Plastic collected in volume: 192 Kg of plastic !!!!

Sponsors: The complete trip end to end was sponsored by Oracle India Pvt Ltd. Oracle India also sponsored 4 cement rings at Muthathi, that was placed at the site a week before the trip.

Volunteers in Action

Painting the Bins

THE GROUP

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Proposal to Intel : 14 Sep 2009

Vee Clean and Green has submitted a proposal to Intel (India), seeking their support for implementing the long term solution of employing local tribals in keeping Mutthathi clean of plastic litter.

This is such a key part of the Vee Clean and Green vision.

Awaiting the declaration of the contest that this proposal is a contestant of.

Secretary, Dept of Forest, Govt of Karnataka

http://veecleanandgreenmeetingminutes.blogspot.com/2009/09/dialogue-with-secretary-department-of.html

See the link above for updates on the dialogue with the Govt of Karnataka with Vee Clean and Green

Saahas and Rotary Club

See details of the synergy between Vee Clean and Green and other groups/clubs

http://veecleanandgreenmeetingminutes.blogspot.com/2009/09/rotary-club-and-vee-clean-and-green.html

http://veecleanandgreenmeetingminutes.blogspot.com/2009/09/saahas-and-vee-clean-and-green.html

Initiative at Coorg

See details in the link below

http://veecleanandgreenmeetingminutes.blogspot.com/2009/09/vee-clean-and-green-at-coorg.html

Waiting for the monsoons to get over to embark on this project.

Mahadevapura Clean up with Life Dream Students : 17 May 2009

Vee Clean and Green volunteers : Sachin, Sheetal, Roopa, Jayashree, Pratibha, and Sachin's friend.
Life Dream Coordinators : Sabitha and Salina.
Life Dream Volunteers : 15 in number
Sponsor of Equipment : Life Dream
Waste Collection : KK Plastic Waste Mgmt Pvt Ltd.,

Location : 120 housese hamlet in Mahadevpura.
Clean up time : 10AM to 1 pm.

Collection : 8 Sack loads of plastic

Value : Tremendous satisfaction to see the Life Dream volunteers throw themselves enthusiastically into the cleaning process and the awareness they built in the community while doing the clean up. Priceless.

Clean up Trip : Sangam : 18 Apr 2009

There were two events on the same day 18 Apr 2009. Sun Microsystems for the 3rd Year running worked shoulder to shoulder with the help of Vee Clean and Green volunteers to clean plastic litter from Sangam (~45 Km from Kankapura).

Pradeep Singh and Rakesh Chandra - key volunteers from Vee Clean and Green.

Trip Details :

Sun Microsystems World Wide Volunteer Week, 2009 kick started on 18 April from the Sun office at Divyasree Chambers, when two buses, full of volunteers, started at 7:00 AM for a Clean up Drive. We were headed towards Sangam, Confluence of Arkavathi and Kaveri rivers.

In the Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary amidst forests, 100 Kms from Bangalore this is a beautiful picnic spot which attracts thousands of picnickers every year. Like many other picnic spots Sangam is also littered with lots of plastic bags, bottles and plastic cups which is very harmful for environment.

55 people from all walks of life, Sun Employees, their family and friends, students form UVCE, RVCE, PESIT and RNSIT and volunteers from Vee Clean and Green joined in for this drive. We had introductions and fun games on the way before stopping for breakfast at a school campus in a village. We reached Sangam at 10:30 AM.

Here people formed small teams. With rakes, gunny bags and gloves in their hands volunteers were collecting and segregating plastic under 3 categories. From the stretch of both sides of Arkavati river, bringing the loads of plastic in gunny bags to the team doing stuffing and stitching of these bags. Another team of volunteers took charge of installing and painting four dustbins. When this all was happening some volunteers took care of supply of enough water and fresh lime to all volunteers and also spreading awareness among local people and picnickers. Overall it was a great team work, with volunteers working in hot summer, which resulted in collection of 140 Kg of plastic and a lots cleaner Sangam.

Jungle Lodges and Resorts are helping Vee Clean and Green to deliver the collected plastic to KK Plastic Waste Management Pvt Ltd., for recycling, and they offered their help in this event too.

After lunch at 2:00 PM people took some rest under the trees. There we could feel the serenity of nature. Its a bliss being being so close to nature.

One Bus started back at 3:00 PM. Some people stayed back to explore Mekedatu and started back in second bus at 5:00 PM. We had some snacks on the way back in bus and had as exciting round of Antakshari. This bus reached back by 8:00 PM.

Life Dream and Vee Clean and Green - A social Initiative

An introduction to Life Dream : http://www.lifedreamfoundation.org/insidepages.html

At Life Dream, the 3 months program is conducted FREE, and the students are suggested to give a gurudakshina. The students will champion the environment issue facing the locality and work towards solving them.

Towards that on 18 Apr 09, two of Vee Clean and Green volunteers conducted an awareness program for the students of Life Dream on Environment, Plasitc litter, effects and how Vee Clean and Green is making an impact.

Cooperation with Jungle Lodges and Resorts : Meeting 23 Jan 2009

This post you will find on the main Vee Clean and Green blog and on the Vee Clean and Green : Meeting Minutes blog. This is really the most important step forward towards a long term solution..

Deepa Mohan and Roopa represented Vee Clean and Green team in this meeting with the MD, Jungle Lodges and Resorts (Mr N D Tiwari)

We were invited to a meeting with the MD, Jungle Lodges and Resorts. An honour to have such an opportunity. Clean and Green was represented by Deepa Mohan and Roopa Sankaran. As remarked by Sandeep - another Red Letter Day for Vee Clean and Green.

Mr N.D Tiwari, MD, JLR received us on time. Thanked him for the support extended so far. He asked what are the other areas that we can work together on. Just minuting the discussion :

1. JLR will have some staff (identified number of staff) working in Mutthathi and Sangama to do the clean up during weekdays. Weekends being very busy at JLR, the staff will work duing the weekdays on cleaning up.

2. JLR property managers will now become part of the EDC and actively participate in involving the locals in maintaining the picnic spots. Clean and Green volunteers to be prompters to the Managers to ensure this is taking place.

3. JLR vehicles will continue to bring back the plastic from this cleaning to KK Plastics Waste Management - as has been recently accomplished. Again Clean and Green to play the prompter role, to ensure no slack in the continued activities. Note 1 : Mr Tiwari, assured that he will direct his staff at Galibore and Bheemeswari about the role they have to play in ensuring these above mentioned points. Note 2 : Mr Tiwari expressed his concern over the problem of litter and assured that having a clean environ is a felt need. He was very appreciative of the efforts from Clean and Green so far.

4. Provide a proposal for review to Mr Karthik of JLR, who will then coordinate a meeting of Clean and Green with Director Tourism Subhash Hari Singh. Note 3 : Mr Tiwari, reassured that Clean and Green will face no challenges and will enjoy and recieve support from his office and his staff in the implementation of the key points (above) in ensuring Muttathi and Sangama clean.