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.