First Step at Muththatti - Trip Report

Date : 26th Nov 2006

Place : Muththatti

Number of Volunteers that participated: 17

Trip Report: Yet another good cleaning drive by the “Clean & Green” team, with a good turnout on the volunteers’ front. Much Planning had to go into this trip primarily for 2 reasons 1) Good Number of Volunteers 2) It’s a new place that the team has adopted. With so many phone calls and mails hitting the inboxes finally the day had come for the team to visit Muththatti. Though the vehicles reached slightly late to the initial pick up point we managed to pick all the volunteers and were off to Kanakapura from banashankari by 6.45 Am. A short stopover at Kanakapura village for breakfast and then moved ahead towards the spot where we were destined for, reached the place well in time. At the very first glance it gave us an impression “this place is an awful mess”. This place is littered left right center and in magnitude of 50 times Sangama or Pearl Valley our previous cleaning spots. However the volunteers didn’t lose hope. Somewhere a beginning has to be made and we could clean whatever we can and clean little part of the stretch. The operation continued for more than an hour or so and soon we ran out of sacs. We tried compressing few of the sacs to create space and collected some more plastic. And finally we are done with the cleaning, all the 15 sacs were full but the very sight of the place doesn’t bring any smiles on the faces for the task undertaken. The place is littered so badly we might need the entire village to take up this initiative and make sure the public visiting maintain some decorum. After a pep talk by Sandeep we left to JL&R Bhemeswari for lunch. Few of them trekked to this place that is about 6kms from Muththatti while the rest left in the vehicle. We had a sumptuous lunch followed by discussion on what should be the future course of action. We took rest for more than an hour and left to Muththatti. We could see the place where we segregated the garbage bags were out of shape and it’s purely a monkey business. At the outset all of them were let down looking at the scene, however we rolled up our sleeves segregated the plastic and dumped into the JL&R vehicle, which came right on time. And then left for Bangalore on a good note. We reached Bangalore at about 7 pm. Though the task undertaken was minimal most of them feel it’s a good starting step to make a difference.

Learnings from the Trip:

• Regular visits to this place with good number at least 18.
• We should look at other alternatives along with cleaning drives – talk to the panchayat, educate the locals, involve them in the activity.
• Posters or Notice Boards need to be in strategic locations than hidden elsewhere.

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: 15 bags with overall weight aggregating to 80-90 Kgs.

Sponsors: Jungle Lodges and Resorts sponsored Lunch. Garbage disposal from Muththatti to Kanakapura was sponsored by JLR. We would like to thank Ms. Jija Hari Sing MD JL&R for encouraging the group drive this kind of cleaning activities and Mr. Nahar Resident Manager of JL& R for his assured support to the C&G team for future trips also.

Other Expenditure (Food, water, Gloves, Garbage Bags, Sticks, Parking and Misc): This ran into Rs 3740/-

Expenses Shared By: Overall the expenses amounted to Rs.3740/ and were shared equally among the 17 volunteers who turned up for the trip. Essentially each individual who turned up for the trip contributed Rs.220/ for the Clean and Green program.

Volunteers in action:

Scene before the cleaning activity:

Scene after the activity: Garbage Being transported in JL&R vehicle.

Great Job folks...Keep Volunteering for a Good Cause - When you give something to the nature , mother earth will definitely reward you in some other form.

Until Next Activity....

Vijay K Yenne

for "Clean And Green"

Revisiting Pear Valley!!!

Last Sunday We had Been to Pearl Valley for the regular cleaning activity. Though people were slighly skeptical for it has been long that we visited this place and the number of volunteers were less in number. Fortunately we had support from KK Plastics who chipped in the right moment when we wondering what to do with the garbage we collect at this place. They were sensitized with the C&G's initiative and were ready to help us in whatever form they could. We appreciate their social committment . Thanks to Shamala for her efforts in coordinating with them and making them participate in the cleaning activity along with carrying the 40 KG of Plastic waste. Should definitely thank Kamal,Karthic, Ravi, Madhavi & Lakshmi in helping us to carry the task succesfully. Now that we have support from KK Plastics, we should definitely go in huge number and make "PEARL VALLEY" indeed a "VALLEY" which is plastic free.

For "CLEAN AND GREEN"
Vijay K Yenne

Remarkable Trip!!!!

Baggages with Garbage Beneath!!!!


Would be wondering why i titled this trip as a remarkable trip.As a matter of fact its phenomenonal too. Before i proceed further let me give you a brief statistics about the trip that we made to MekeDaatu on 16th of July 2006.
Number of Volunteers turned up for the cleaning activity - 16
Number of new people for this trip - 10
Number of Posters - 8
Number of Garbage bags used- 12
Number of huge Rag Picker bags used - 3
Number of vehicles we used for the trip- 2
Amount spent on the whole trip - Rs 3520/-
Individual contribution towards this initiative - Rs 220/-
Number of people addressed about the initiative at MekeDatu: 35-45
Amount of Plastic collected - 75-80 kg

Well these are some of the numbers that i remember off the cuff. I always look at the quantitative aspect because it always sets the tone for a qualitative work. So why did i mention all the above statistics - for "Statistics are like miniskirts - they reveal more than what they hide" and the numbers above display our accomplishment and i guess i need not say anything more on this!!!! Absolutely this trip is a remarkable one for many reasons primarily the amount of plastic collected is huge, we sensitized the people visiting the place by displaying the huge amount of garbage collected and ultimately we started making an impact in big way!!! We are heading in the right direction for which the group has formed.

This blog is dedicated to all those people who made it on this trip. Let us put the thoughts of few people who participated in this trip for the first time in their very own words :

Abhinav Says : I am very glad that we did such a wonderful work which will make us proud all the time. The environmental clean and green mission is a very good initiative started by you guys. Although today my back hurts and have some pain but the work which we did was great and it melts down every bit of it when I remember the amount of garbage we collected and the good that we did to our own planet.we had a very good time, Cheers to everybody.

What Karthik Seshagiri Feels : Everyone were committed in the activity - kudos to the people for identifying such a committed team.It was a good chance to meet with people from different walks of life.Well organized in terms of travel to the spot organizing people on the activity to be performed.

Kamal's thougths : It is a great initiative, we need to save the environment and make it a better place for our decendents. It was memorable day for me, I enjoyed every bit of it. Got a chance to meet many people, every one of them where very jovial. This made our cleaning activity more fun. The activity was well planned.

Somashekar opinions: I feel that I had not wasted a Sunday in my life, as the usual way which I do it by just sleeping the whole day. I more interested towards working for a such a cause. It makes me proud.

Ravi's View : It was a very good experience and no doubt I would be interested in going back again. Since the activity was two folds, one to clean up the existing garbage and secondly to educate the people not to litter, it has meaningful impact, I am sure people atleast some people would take care while littering if not all. Also the activity was not hectic or boring, probably because of the kind of people who came were also enthusiastic about the whole thing. The amout of garbage collected obviously shows the enthusiasm.


And Let me end it since i started it .......

This activity is an absolute display of TEAMWORK : It is amazing how much you can accomplish when it doesn't matter who gets the credit, in the end its the team and only the team that did the work gets the credit!!!! So let us cheer up for each and every individual who made for the trip. This trip will surely be remembered as one important milestone and we have many more yet to accomplish!!! Keep up the spirit guyz..lets save these beautiful places of Nature for If you Save the Nature ...Nature will Save you!!!!

PS :Most of them did give their suggestions for improvement which will be discussed in the next meeting, i didn't want to put them here for the blog will run into too many words!!!!

Letz have more and More Trips to Clean and Make these places Green!!!!
Vijay K Yenne

Odds

It started with a vague idea of joining with some trekking groups to do a cleanup when one is in the outdoors. Yet with a difference – you don’t just collect the garbage and dump – but see it to its logical end – reduce use, reuse or recycle.

When the participation from these groups was not as forthcoming as it could have been – then the option started with roping in friends with similar interests – outdoors and keeping them clean – this group started taking shape.

Against all odds – the first meeting had just four members in it.

Today we stand as group of 22 members registered on the e-group and others who have been attending our meetings or been outdoors to do the cleaning. We have four field trips under our belt. Meetings with KSTDC, Jungle Lodges and Forest Departments have been immensely satisfying. They volunteer to help us with our agenda.

Other waste management groups and organizations are willing to meet us, train us and provide that little nudge towards solving the problems of reuse and recycling.

This has been possible because of every ounce of energy that you have provided, time you have spent, ideas you have shared, experience and knowledge that you have volunteered.

Think of the odds we have surmounted – from a point where we did not know what direction this team will take – to knowing a clear plan of things to do. Milestones to achieve, targets to reach.

All this in just about three months – the first meeting was sometime in early Feb in Barista on MG Road.


Now is also not the time to rest on your laurels – as there are miles to go before we sleep.

MekkeDatu - trip 2 in three parts

Guyz, Galz and others if any... with your permission let me take the first few lines of Charles Dicken's "Tale of 2 cities" (May not be in the same order)

It was Worst of the times. ( Great Legend Raj Kumar's Death shook blore with anti-social elements showing thier true colors) It was the Best of the times. (Come what may we have decided to go for trip to clean to Mekedattu - Nothing can shatter a good cause ) It was the Age of Wisdom.( 8 people sharing a common consensus working out for a good cause) It was the epoch of belief. ( We beleive people will get inspired and more numbers will join us in carrying our work on a larger scale.) Let me stop here with Dicken's.

For quite sometime we have been planning a trip to Clean to MekkeDattu. Series of mails exchanged , lotz of phone calls between jungle lodges and sameer. Initially the plan was to camp at Mekedattu in the night and carry the field work in the morning.Somehow it didn't work out so we shifted our gears to plan B. We decided to spend the saturday night at roopa's house and leave for mekkedattu early in the morning. Earlier in the evening at around 8.35 PM I met bindiya collected the stuff (food..lotz and lotz of food - probably enough for a 2 day trek!!!) and reached KFC CMH Road, where roopa was waiting. We were waiting for the other folks to join. Pritesh landed up exactly on time. Both Roopa and pritesh managed to get the early bird choc's from me. Soon Shamala and Dileep joined us followed by Lakshmi. There were 2 dropouts in the last moment. Thereafter we had to wait for shilpa. Her delay is accepted for she stays too far from the point where we were supposed to meet. Having realised we reached the head count we reached Roopa's House. There were some strict instructions on how to use the loo from Roopa. For people interested please land up at her
house to get to know the instrucions. Having had a cup of tea we stared the nite show with "Dumb Charades". It was a great fun moment. People got to know lot of innovative ways of dumb actions. However Shamala and myself were adjuged the best Dumbers .) for the Really @ Actually and "Oye Bubbly" for "OY" of Troy respectively. While we were having fun with DumbC's sameer joined us and he too added fuel to the fun we were having. It was almost 1.30 AM we decided to have a short nap, so that we can really (Actually) contribute during the day. It was 3.30 AM Sameer and myself got up and found that Qualis guy is gonna reach us only by 4.30. So took one more short nap...while the guyz were having naps in intervals , all the women were sleeping on a single Cot in the form of a SINE wave Finally the qualis arrived at 4.45 AM . With in few minutes we transferred whatever stuff is required for the trip.

At around 5 we headed towards Kanakpura. We reached Sangam at 7. This 2 hours of drive allowed people to recharge their batteries for they had very short hours of sleep. Soon we unloaded some amount of food, water and sticks and started our trek crossing the river. Its a 4 km Trek from Sangam to MekkeDattu. We decided to start the cleaning programme right from where we had begun. The collection amounted to 2 baggages of plastic on the way itself.
Roopa , laksmi and Myself reached MekkeDattu at around 8.30. We took rest for a while to recharge ourselves for the next course of action. Soon the rest of the folks joined us. Having given them enough time for refreshing themselves we started our part2 of cleaning. We carried out the operation for about more than 2 hours. Collected huge chunks of junks of plastic. At around 11.45 we had refreshened ourselves and had some fruits and other stuff. We had few puzzles of both PJ and X-rated Genre, for which Shamala was one of the Victim. ) Soon it was ended by a short Jive Performance by Sameer and Roopa with Roopa leading all the way...

Just before dumping the garbage into the pit out there we thought we clean up the parts around this place too. so soon the part3 of the operation followed. With in 30 minutes our folks finished cleaning that place. Finally we collected very good amount of plastic. We took few snaps with the garbage bags dumped into the pit and started our journey back to Sangam.
Since the bus which is supposed to arrive hadn't turned up (reason being forest dept on strike) we trekked back to sangam. On the way back we picked up the Garabge bags we collected initially on the way up, dumped it into the pit near Sangam. On the way back few people had the privilige of a glimpse of my Sun Dance .) Though it was quite hot but not to a greater extent we were relentlessly trekking. At around 2 PM we reached Sangam. We had good amount of Coconut water with avg being 2 coconuts per head.

Having had enough water we decided to head back to bangalore. Since few of us atleast me was looking completely toned out we stopped in the middle of the town to wash our face ofcourse after spotting the place where we can get water to do the same. Myself, Dileep and Shamala were enjoying the ride with ABA songs by singing it out loudly..while the rest were also enjoying with in themselves...ABA is Aashiq Banaya Aapne for the absolutely clueless .) We stopped once we crossed the village had food for the noon. Roopa prepared the sandwiches, while laksmi and myself doing the cutlery job. Had to settle the accounts since few of the folks wanted to get down on their way. Shamala was the first person to get down, followed by Pritesh and then Shilpa. We reached roopa's house where dileep and lakshmi dispersed. Sameer, Roopa and myself exchanged few thoughts about the trip. distributed the left over stuff among ourselves. After that me and sameer departed to where we belong to.

Before i proceed to Lighter amounts and take aways from the trip, Here are Laksmi's thought's in her own words :
Guys/gals i must tell you the job you did the first time around had been really good. In comparison to last time, the place was less dirty. Of course since it is summer, there were lot of water bottles and pepsi cups. Of course the pan parag and kure-kure numbers were not far behind too. Great work to the team who got into cleaning right from where we started walking towards Mekedatu.

Some Lighter Moments :

• How to clear a session/cache when acting dumb, please ask me .)
• How to scare a monkey with your dance get to know the steps from me. Roopa n laksmi what say??
• You should have watched Shamala's facial expression when instructing few group of guyz who were there with some alcohol in the water bottles. I could see a glimpse of Medha Patkar in her. Probably these guyz who got scared and started collecting stuff and putting in the garbage (even card boards) will start "Shamala sey Bachaoo Aandolon".
• Though Shilpa is quiter among the group she concentrates on execution of the task.
  

Few Take Aways & Suggestions :

• Letz avoid field work during summer and brain storm on activities that can be carried out for future.
• Come up with a cost estimate metrics (me already looking at it), since the team is already shelling out their time and energy and on top of that they have to bear the costs which at times might be slighly overhead.
• We may need to brain storm and come with a process for maintaining a central pool amount. One thing that comes right away is to collect Rs 50 per head from the group members for every trip we make, and what ever difference of amount to be taken care by the actual trip goers.
• Find out some potential sponsors (Individuals) who are very much interested in our activities but cannot dedicate time. These individuals would definitely like todo a monetary support which will add into the central pool amount. In the long run when we grow big and establish ourselves as an organization this expereince of maintianing finances will help to a great extent.
• Instead of buying food from retail stores which is amounting to be expensive, we can probably prepare minimal stuff at home , carry few cucumbers and lemons which will serve the purpose.
  
• Every field worker should carry a back-pack with atleast one water-bottle.
• Work out something on camping overnite which might reduce the transportaion expenses.
  

Well i think i should stop here.

Team work displayed by the folks is just phenomenonal. Great Going folks. Special acknowledgements to Sameer for arranging the Qualis at that odd hour of the day. We appreciate efforts by Dileep and Pritesh for joining us for the first time. Cheers for everyone else who made it for the trip. I hope everybody enjoyed the trip. Though the effort we spent is drop in an ocean, probably more and more groups will get inspired and more droplets of efforts will spent thereby making atleast these few good sights of nature plastic free.

Nothing in this meant to be offensive.(My disclaimer)

Looking forward for more people to volunteer.

Cheers
Vijay Kumar Yenne

TMM 2 - Trip to Mutayala Maduvu

It was bright sunny afternoon. Rather than bright i should say it was sulking hot but the excitement surpassed the heat!!! I was coming back from my rehersal spot to catch up our eco-friends. Gosh it was already 2.20 the traffic was getting on to my nerves. Called up our CEE (Chief Execution Expert) to find out if they are waiting for me, But realised that the rest of the resources are yet to turn up at KFC. Finally reached the spot ofcourse 10 mins late. There i see CEE is all charged up with a different attire all together to rock the day inspiring people around. In few mins i met other folks FM (Facilities Manager), Feeding Expert, Don sisters, analyst, K Guru and the Scorpion King!!! and not to forget an Angel !!!! More on these people later. We started off with quick introduction among ourselves, somebody was shouting we dont have a camera...and with in few minutes comes the Camera (Angel hain naa!!! ). A smooth journey from KFC CMH road to Electronic city. On the way ahead we started off the traditional "Dumb Charades" ..ooff what movies tora tora tora..uncle tom's cabin..it was great fun...With in no time we realised we entered one Zammed narrow lane which was slight a tussle for our gaddi to move out. Here entered the jumbo ride. The entire path till mutalamadavu was horrible, inspite of this the journey was quite comfortable. As soon as we reached the main spot our CEE has given the instructions how to carry about the operation and quickly we were ready to pull over the sleeves and join the hurdle. Our main focus was only to collect forms of plastic. We carried our operation for more than an hour and half. Gosh we collected somewhere around more than 12 bags of Garbage (Remind you only plastic). The worst part of the garbage is the pepsi cups and the ghutka packets. They are just innumerable. For a moment i thought the Govt should increase the cost of Ghutka by 100 times.We loaded the bags into the Tempo that has been specially booked for this purpose by our offsite consultant alias Quick Gun Murugan!!!.
Ofcourse we had a snap session with the garbage we collected, followed by a snackdin session... i mean something more than snacks and less than dinner...thank god I didnt have my meal in the noon!!! Our feeding expert (with lotz of zeal even aftert hat tiresome operation ) was on a run, literally feeding everyone. He is just unstoppable. The elder Don Sister was just taking every chance to grab the Dahi having executed her task gracefully!!! After having a nice food session facilated by our FM we were on a move, for we have to get back to the city to dump our garbage. At this moment i would like to tell little about our silent chota Don sister - she executes her work silently ofcourse sticking to the basics perfectly. On the way back we discovered singer SHAAN in the form of our analyst (waise tho baaki sab bhi achha gaa rahen hain except that my songs were dumped!!! ). He has given one fantastic advice (analyst jo hain!!!! ) details of which will be told later. We were trying to figure out on the way where to dump the Garbage . Thanks to KGuru...for his kannada skills has helped us in negotiating the driver to tell exactly where to dump it. finally We decided to dump it near tippasandra.....ending with Our FM calculating the economy of the trip and spelling out the exact costs and future plan!!!

We were back to where we began. It was over before one realized it had started. But that the fate of every great experience we‘ve had!

Few key points out of this expereince :

We should involve local people in ensuring they participate in these kindaa programmes. We can pay them on per bag basis. Very well said Mr Analyst!!!

• One it reduces the operations cost. people can volunteer (on a rotation basis) to get the garbage collected probably once in fortnite.
• Two you are providing some means of living through a good cause.
  

If at all you are wondering why the !$%^ you are getting the garbage all the way to blore, remember it those people from out of that place who are the main source for that innumerous amount of garbage. Had it been like every individual visiting that place get the garbage back and puts in his locale bin the scenario would have been different. So no harm in getting the garbage back to Blore. However we need to identify some means of recycling this garbage rather than the plastic getting its place in land fills.


Well thats all about the trip in brief!!!

Want to know the real characters out of these Pseudo Terminolgies i used , then here I introduce the resources :

CEE - Chief Execution Expert - Ms Roopa
FM - Facilities Manager - Ms Bindiya
Feeding Expert - Mr Mayur
DON Sister's - Shamala (Elder Don ) & Aruna - ( Chota Khamooshi Don )
Analyst - Vishnu - (!!M B speaks...)
K.Guru - Kannada Guru - Tejaswi
Scorpion King - Sandeep Chakraborty with his Scorpio - thank you so much for reducing the expenses!!!!
Offsite consultant alias Quick Gun Murugan!!!. - Sameer Tupaki -
Angel - always Ahead of us for everything we need - Lakshmi

Guessing what I will call myself !!!!




Letz catch up soon in another Fun Filled activity



This is Save-Nature's spokesperson (Bhakwas bolu!!! )

Vijay Kumar Yenne

reporting from BloggersSpot....Over and out!

Meeting with the Commercial Manager, KSTDC(Hotels)

Here's updating you all with a morning well-spent !

Thejaswi and me reached Khanija Bhavan at around 10:30 this morning and met Mr. M. Subramaniam, a very approachable person:

Minutes of the Meeting:

1) Waste management ? - initially he was reluctant and tried to brush it off saying it was not their concern since they do not own the place, but then he was honest enough to accept that they were the cause for most of the plastics around and he'll definitely work with us to get that sorted out -one of his ideas being that "We'll transfer food contents in plastic covers to Paper bags before selling to customers, as per the process followed at Bannerghatta"'

2) He suggested we present our thoughts about resolving the issue and what we expect from them, over mails and keep him updated about our activities.

3) He mentioned the make-over of Muthyalmaduvu - A project that will be started in a month or so. Said they would definitely keep in mind spreading awareness about cleanliness and place dust-bins along the path. [Shared info about the architect who would be involved too, not sure if this is of any importance ? ]

Well, he did give us a very rosy picture of what will be done and that he would be glad to help us out, but this can happen only if we are able to approach him as a more professional group. Maybe we should again have a meeting with him and think of ways to get him to actually back us up and since he seems to be open to our objective it shouldn't be really difficult.

His visiting card:

M. Subramaniam
Commercial Manager (Hotels)
KSTDC
#49, 2nd Floor, Khanija Bhavan, West Entrance,
Race Course Road, Bangalore - 560 001
Off: 22352901, 902, 22352580
Fax: 080-22352963
E-mail: kstdc@vsnl.in
Website - www.kstdc.nic.in


Thanks,
Shamala
for Save Nature

first step in mekedatu...

Let me start from the day 1 plan. On march 4th we(Shilpa, Hari,Lakshmi,
Suresh, me,Bindiya,Amar) met and decided on where to go and we had 9 in
our list but due to various reasons only 6 could make it.

We started our journey from Bangalore early in the morning at 6.45 AM
(definitely early on Sunday!!). We met; sat in the car started the
journey we were getting to know each other as most of us were strangers
till we met. We were talking about what we are supposed to go do there
and were planning how to educate those localities.

The climate is becoming hotter and  we are tired before we reach there!
We reached there finally!! Wow we could see very little water and few
people (as were early) and loads of waste. We took a quick glace of the
place around and the beautiful stream.

But no body spent much time looking and admiring as all of us knew why
we were there!!!
And the scariest part was how we will complete if it gets hotter!!!!!
We all started to plan which place to cover how'll look after the stuff
who'll remind all of us to take water(very imp) in between within few
min we started and we are picking up the plastics!!! Strange really
strange I could never imagine people can make any place so dirty. What
not they use and throw!! '

We were amazed…. Our garbage collection bag is getting filled faster
and faster and the climate is getting hotter and hotter. We all worked
to our best to clean the place…Some people saw us doing it and instead
of throwing the candy (plastic) on the ground they gave it to us some
really felt responsible!! We wish there was dustbin!!!!

We actually didn't foresee the outcome before we stared. The outcome
was just amazing… We look back at the place from top.
How clean it looks!!!!...
How satisfied we all were!!! We forgot the pain we went through…
We came to the place we catch the bus to our surprise with in few
hours people have dirtied that place too…!! How insensitive!!!!!
We took rest for 5 min there and stared to clean that place too!!
Guess what....
There were other people who came to have fun were inspired by us!!!
And helped us clean the place!! Is not that amazing!!.

We could achieve the target to some extent. :-)

We had great fun cleaning….  :-)

Regards,
Shweta S
for Save Nature

Converting plastic waste into petrol

"ALKA Zadgaonkar believes in creating something of value even out of waste. Since 2002, she has been demonstrating to Indian and foreign experts how waste plastic can be converted into petrol, offering a solution to one of the world’s biggest environment problems—-waste plastic disposal.

Head of the Department of Organic Chemistry at Nagpur’s G.H. Raisoni College of Engineering, Zadgaonkar recently signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) for manufacturing and marketing petroleum products generated from waste plastic. She has been given Rs 5.9 million for the pilot project.

How did she hit upon the idea? "Both plastics and petro-products are hydrocarbons. The only difference is that in plastics the chain of molecules is longer. So, I wondered if it was possible to break the chain into small segments to convert it into value-added fuel. I started working on this idea in 1995 and my first successful experiment was in 1998-99," says 40-year-old Zadgaonkar.

Zadgaonkar’s method is simple: shredded plastic waste - free of oxygen – is heated with coal and a secret chemical. The products include fuel range liquids, coke and LPG range gases. About 1 kg of plastic and 100 gm of coal churn out a litre of fuel, which contains the gasoline range. More processing, Zadgaonkar claims, yields refined petrol.

"We can use any waste plastic recycled any number of times," says Zadgaonkar. She has received a patent from the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO)."

Above are some parts of an article in The Sunday Tribune dated Sunday, September 28, 2003. Full article can be read here. Now this is something we have been looking for a long time in our mission of Clean and Green. As soon as we came to know about it, we contacted her. Following are the important points from that discussion:

1. The plant can not be rented as it costs around 6 crore rupees.
2. The product has been launched commercially recently so it brings some complications of its own.
3. Currently there is no plant installed in Bangalore neither they are collecting the waste from Bangalore (through any agency etc) as capacity of this plant is 5 MT/day and Nagpur is producing 30 MT/day of waste.
4. She does not have any plan to install one such plant in Bangalore in near future.

Now we have seen a ray of hope. Do we have something like this in Bangalore? If you know, please share it with us. More about Alka's effort can be read at http://www.goodnewsindia.com/index.php/Magazine/story/alkaZ/

Pritesh Jain
for Save Nature

ps: photo copied from goodnewsindia.com article. For illustration purpose only.

first step....

The IDEA of "Save Nature" is in the hearts of many people for a long time. Just that due to some reason it was not coming to life. Finally on 19th Feb, the group decided to take the first giant step. Muthyalmadu became the chosen one destinition. Amar, Hari, Abhay, Sashi, Shyamala, Bindiya, Roopa, Tejaswi chose to spend one fine Sunday with nature nurturing their DREAM. Dream of Plastic Free Clean and Green Environment.

Thanks to the dedicated effort of Amar and Bindiya all the logistics of food and transportation was taken care of. A little bit of antakshari, a little bit of stopping to pick up water, look for batteries that no-one had and a film roll, the group reached Muthyalmadu pretty early before the sun got too hot.

The place was litter strew and so awful that initially seemed like we have hit a jackpot. We armed ourselves with the gloves we had carried and the garbage bags and we spread ourselves over the stretch from near the KSTDC restaurant to where the staircase leads you down to the stream and the temple.

The amount of plastic we encountered was phenomenal, plastic bottles, ice cream cups, gutkha cover, toffee wrappers (small bits lodged in difficult places), on tree branches, under thorny bushes, in the stream just about everywhere where the eyes could see.

we collected and disposed off with 16 whopppppiing large sized bags of plastic !!!!

Really an amazing start. A fulfilling experience. Moreover this trip showed us the challanges in front of us. An eye opener in true sense. More about the discussion later.
keep watching for more....

Pritesh Jain
for Save Nature
(based on the mail sent by Roopa to the group)

an introduction...

Save Nature is not just any group. Its an IDEA, a DREAM. A dream, that we can have plastic free green and clean environment. Started by a group of young enthusiastic people, it is right now based in Bangalore. In our modest means, we have started with most popular picnic spots and trekking routes (as most of us have been to these places and could see the garbage spread there). So right now, we are funded and supported on individual contribution. Here is some more information about the group (taken from the presentation made by the group members)

Our Aim:

To route plastic out from often visited picnic spots in and around Bangalore.

To find out ways to Dispose the plastic in eco-friendly way.

To create awareness about the idea of sensible usage of plastic.

Our slogan: Reduce Reuse Recycle (RRR)

Our Karmabhumi: To start with we have chosen two places around Bangalore - Muthyamadu (Anekal) and Mekedaatu. We plan to visit these locations every alternate weekend (mostly Saturday) and have a round of clean up.

Our funds and accounts: Right now we are working on the principle of "spend and split". Each person is assigned a responsibility; finally cost is split between the members who went on the trip. All money is from personal contribution as of now, though a proper account of usage is maintained.

You can look forward for a fun-filled satisfaction-rich experience with us. We have a yahoo group to keep the information about the activities. You can join it at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/savenature/ . Lots of good and relevant discussions take place on the group.

Pritesh Jain
for Save Nature