Manchanbele Dam Area Clean Up : EMC2 Initiative

Date : 9 Jul 2011
Place : Manchanbele Dam area

Sponsor : EMC Square

No of Volunteers : 20

Kgs of Plastic Collected : 80 Kgs


Coordinator EMCs : Benjamin Prince, Sagar

Coordinator Clean and Green : Roopa Sankaran

IBM Centenary Celebrations - Involves Clean and Green

Date: 15th June 2011


Place: Muthathi

Number of Volunteers: 27



IBM celebrated its centennial year on June 15th, 2010. As part of the centennial celebration IBM actively encouraged its employees to give back to community by getting involved social projects, this initiative is called “Celebration of Service”.

We (IBM Rational CCM team) as part of IBM’s “Celebration of Service” project got in touch with Sandeep and Roopa and chalked out a plan for a clean drive on June 15th, 2011.

Thanks to Sandeep and Roopa’s encouraging words and helping us in all possible ways.



The team with 27 exuberant folks kicked off from IBM, EGL campus at 7:00 AM on a shuttle. En route to Muthathi, game of “Antakshari” kept everyone animated. The team stopped 30 mins for breakfast at a Darshini, 3 kms before Art of Living. After the pleasing breakfast, we got into shuttle and reached Muthathi around 10:15 AM.

Jungle Lodges staff was waiting for our arrival; confirmed the volunteer count and placed lunch order for the same.

After a brief by Kamal and Vivek (the co-coordinators ) to bustling volunteers about the Clean and Green project and clean-up plan, volunteers geared with rakes, gloves and gunny bags formed teams and went on scouting spree at 10:30 AM.



The teams segregated plastic at source, i.e. each volunteer were collecting either composite plastics (gutka/biscuit/chips wrappers etc) or regular plastics (carry bags, plastic bottles/cups/plates etc). We also segregated glass bottles as we felt it could harm tourists if in case it’s broken. We saw loads of paper wastes strewn around and one of the volunteers rightly asked why don’t we collect them as well and drop in the dustbins. We all felt it’s a wise idea and started collecting paper wastes as well and dumped in dustbins.

Few kids from near by villages were inquisitive about our actions and it was pleasing to see them doing their bit by collecting the wastes

At 12:45 PM we stopped collecting and started crushing and sewing the gunny bags. 28 bags of wastes were collected, which roughly could have weighed around 75 – 80 Kgs.

At 1:30 PM we boarded the bus and headed towards serene Galibore fishing camp for much needed lunch provided by the JLR at subsidized rates. After a scrumptious, the team took rest for 15 mins and later unwound by playing Lagori :)

The team left Galibore fishing camp at 4:30 PM and en route was super excited to see JLR jeeps carrying the collected wastes. Seeing things happening adds lot of value than hearing it, at this moment everyone felt happy that we have done our bit to the community.

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 etc.


Amount of Plastic collected in volume: 75 - 80 Kg of plastic !!!!



Sponsors: The trip was sponsored by exuberant volunteers.



Suggestions by IBM team:

As cleaning is not a long term solution, the team wants to help in grass root level by:

Sponsoring dustbins and Sponsoring notice board

Thanks Clean and Green & JLR for your support and effort in making plastic free tourism place

Clean Up Trip With Hewlett Packard

Clean and Green – Trip to Clean

Date: 17 Apr 2010

Place: Muththathi [Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary]

Number of Volunteers that participated: 45 + 3 + 2 = 50

Trip Report:
Hewlett Packard India., Bangalore, as part of the Sustainability Networks Chapter in India have been involved in Environmental projects. Further progressing their involvement set off on a Clean up drive of a picnic spot in the Wildlife Sanctuary of Karnataka. Supported by volunteers from Clean and Green [Archisman Panigrahi, Jayashree Srinivasan, Rakesh Chandra, Anitha Majji and Roopa Sankaran]. The 45 enthusiastic and bouncing with energy volunteers loaded into the bus started from Hewlett Packard Salarpuria office [near Forum Mall, Koramangala] at 6:30AM on 17 Apr 2010.

As their first trip the location chosen was Mutthathi, the scenic and regiliously significant place in the wilderness of the Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary. 100 Kms from Bangalore in the thick forest, this place is one of the favorite places for picnickers.45 HP Volunteers and 3 volunteers from Clean and Green participated in the trip. The team successfully rolled out of the Bangalore City limits very soon after 6:30AM, giving a head start over the blazing sun during the travel. The group had reached Kanakapura (mid way) well before 8AM. So the team decided to stop for breakfast after Satanur. The bus stopped for breakfast near the outer limits of Satanur village. After a well packed, wholesome breakfast, again set off towards Mutthathi. Clean and Green volunteers gave a briefing to the team about Clean and Green and the information shared was greeted with happy and loud cheers for the group’s efforts. The team reached Mutthathu a little after 10AM.

The HP team coordinator was T Naveen Kumar. He was supported on the logistics front through a vendor company contracted by HP. The logistics was handled very smoothly, leaving the volunteers to focus on having fun. Naveen’s coordination and the efforts of the vendor company members who accompanied the trip, are praiseworthy and notable.
Again the impacts of small gestures are often lasting. HP had arranged for sun screen lotion to be made available to all the volunteers.

So soon after unloading from the bus at Mutthathi, the sunscreen lotion was distributed, ensured that all volunteers wore it and then the briefing on the segregation of plastic was started.

The eager team had to face the blazing sun and unbearable heat. The need to drink lot of water to prevent dehydration was stressed for ensuring adherence.

The cleaning started off in earnestness, with the team wanting to chase a goal of collecting huge amounts of plastic. The team broke out into smaller groups, and left with the gunny sacks and rakes to do the clean up. As ever the number of sacks initially seemed insufficient for the volumes being collected. Soon a small team started stuffing and compressing the plastic into the gunny sacks enabling re-use of some of the sacks and soon we had more sacks than needed.

The cleaning went on about an hour before everyone wanted to take a break. After which the team continued and collected some more plastic waste. The onlookers and picnickers were curious about the work we were doing.

The target for the team was 100 Kgs which was achieved in 2 hours. After stuffing and packing the garbage, the team went to the Forest Dept., facility for washing up and waited for the lunch. The notable element of this trip was HP had also sponsored a three wheeler vehicle to deliver the lunch at Mutthathi.

The delicious and sumptuous lunch was polished off in no time. After which a few brave-hearts set off walking towards Jungle Lodges and Resorts property. The heat was unbearable and though a 4.5 Km walk seemed doable, when we realized that the stretch is 6Km, all of us chickened out and boarded the bus.

The three wheeler vehicle which had carried the lunch for the volunteers was pressed into service to transport the garbage back. All the 100 Kgs of waste plastic was loaded and the vehicle went to Jungle Lodges and Resorts.

On the way back to Bangalore through Haleguru, we stopped at the Jungle Lodges and Resorts. The Clean and Green volunteers met the Resident Manager of CFF, Bheemeswari and the Executive Director of JLR (who was on a visit to the property).

The garbage collected by the Cleaning Staff members (working at Mutthathi) is stored on the JLR property in gunny sacks and stitched up. There were huge number of sacks with the waste collected by the JLR staff. Clean and Green volunteers took permission from the HP coordinator to carry back some of the trash collected by JLR staff. Soon another 100Kgs of waste from the efforts of the JLR staff was also loaded into the three wheeler vehicle. Which then left for Bangalore.

The team enjoyed the scenic beauty of the place and immersed themselves in nature with walks along the banks of the river.

Highlights of the Trip:
During the clean up, we learnt that Jungle Lodges and Resorts, Bheemeswari has hired a 6 member cleaning staff team retained on a monthly salary, to maintain the cleanliness of Mutthathi.
When the team went to Jungle Lodges and Resorts Bheemeswari, the same information was confirmed by the Resident Manager of Jungle Lodges and Resorts, Bheemeswari.
Clean and Green congratulates the Jungle Lodges and Resorts, taking responsibility of the areas near their property, and would like to commend the MD and his staff on this progressive step forward.
Clean and Green volunteers also had an opportunity to meet with the Executive Director of Jungle Lodges and Resorts, at Bheemeswari.

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: 100 Kg of plastic !!!!

Sponsors: The complete trip end to end was sponsored by Hewlett Packard.

Other Expenditure : NA

Expenses Incurred by HP : Details available with HP Coordinator.

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