Gurugram: To create sustainable future and instil a sense of responsibility towards the environment, students of Heritage Xperiential Learning School (HXLS) in Gurugram recently initiated Multi Laminated Packaging (MLP) waste collection drive in their school.
Students of Class 6 led the initiative as a part of their learning expedition called Geography that Shapes Us.
The school has collaborated with an NGO, Safai Bank, for this project. The NGO accumulates the MLP waste and reuses it by sending it to the cement industry where they are burnt in their kilns in a process called co-processing.
In a short span of 4 months, the students have collected and deposited over 14,000 MLP packs to the Safai Bank.
To generate awareness about the MLP issue and the drive, the students prepared visual aids like posters to put around the school campus, made presentations in different classrooms, sent emails to all the departments of the school and placed attractive hand decorated collection boxes at critical points in the whole school so that the MLP waste could be deposited easily.
Apart, the students emphasised that implementation of waste management systems could be done at an individual and community level.
Students like Suhani Ravi Tewari and Sifti Kaur wanted to be a changemaker and have started an MLP collection drive in their condominium.
Sifti launched an awareness campaign and arranged for cardboard boxes for each tower in her condominium complex. She brought wrappers to school and sorted them with the help of her classmates and deposited them with Safai Bank. Sifti pledged to continue the drive in her condominium.
Rajeswari S, Educator, Middle Programme, Heritage Xperiential Learning School, said,“Learning expeditions (or project) have service learning as an important element where the concepts and skills built through the expedition find a real-life application.”
The most common use of MLP is in packaging of food and FMCG products like biscuits, chips, candy, laundry detergent, tea, hand-wash etc. All of these are non-recyclable, non-biodegradable and non-reusable and mostly end up as garbage on the road or in landfills.
“We must also abide by the Plastic Waste Management Rules for trying to reduce plastic waste by stopping its production instead of dumping it and recycling it. We have to remember the three R's, Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. We should bring in the concept of the fourth R, Refuse, which is not followed. If humans refuse to take polyethene or plastic bags given by shopkeepers or stores, their production will automatically stop,” said Sunayna Uberoy, Educator, HXLS.
