Corporate Citizen Claps for the on going growing Social awareness, Campaigns and zest in designing and worshipping of eco-friendly ‘avatars’ of lord ganesha

However, the ingenuity of social entrepreneurs like Gujarat based Binish Desai, Swathi from Warangal, Andhra Pradesh, the citizens of Bengaluru and the artisans from Kolkata, definitely deliver a ‘green’ footprint. Binish designs and creates Ganesha idols from jewellery waste. Founder of Eco Eclectic Technologies, he said, “During the making of artificial jewellery, glass beads are scuffed, leaving powdered waste which is non-recyclable. Usually, jewellery manufacturers discard the jewellery waste which makes its way to the landfills. To stop this waste from reaching landfills and give it a new lease of life, we decided to use it in the making of the eco-Ganesha. We collect the jewellery waste and use a special binder to bind the waste and give it the shape of an idol…” Binish’s Ganesh comes with a ‘visarjan’ bag whereby a devotee can immerse the idol in a tub filled with water instead of water bodies and help prevent pollution. Swathi, despite being struck by polio in her early years, runs a small business of making eco friendly homemade Ganesha idols with clay and selling them as a package. At Rs.750, the idol comes with all the raw material, and even food offering (prasad) needed to worship the deity. “I would come across reports about the cleaning up of Hussain Sagar lake after the idol immersion and I wanted to contribute to it…The idols we make contain Tulasi seeds inside them. So, when the customers immerse the idols even in pots, Tulasi plants grow out of them,” she said. Not to forget the recent Guinness record that was set by 2,138 Bengaluruans gathered to simultaneously create ‘Green Ganesha’ idols at the National College Grounds! Kudos also to the numerous artisans from Kolkata’s famed potter’s lane of ‘Kumortuli’ who descend upon Mumbai and the Southern states every year creating their ‘eco-friendly’ versions of faith and festivity, which sure spells the nemesis of the POP (Plaster of Paris) ‘Ganeshas’ of the past!

Corporate Citizen Slaps the apathy of industrial manufacturers who Continue to remain insensitive to how they treat their industrial waste, especially Chemicals

Recently, the police booked owners of Indian Pesticides Limited when 28 buffaloes reportedly died in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, when they entered a nullah near a chemical factory in the Chinhat area. The effluents contaminated the Gomti river water, which also caused 11 more buffaloes to fall ill after drinking water from the river. They are being treated by veterinarians; while some other bovines remain missing. Sachin Singh, SHO Chinhat Police Station said, “The bovines belonged to the local villagers. The protest by villagers ended only after we assured swift action against those responsible for the incident. The complaints by locals against polluting units in the vicinity are being examined.’’ This is definitely not a one-off and it’s shameful that cases like these have occurred across states and keep repeating themselves. Two youths succumbed to the water pollution in the nullah! With the ball set to roll on October 2, 2019, which will wage a war to scrap single-use plastics by 2022-under the aegis of the PMO (Prime Minister’s Office), it needs more than policies to tackle pollutants that are a bane as per Industrial Audits and Safety norms. These include plastic bags, cups, plates, small bottles, straws and certain types of sachets, which have been identified in line with government policy. “Plastics are ubiquitous in water bodies in today’s time and every time we visit a beach, we are welcomed by an enormous amount of beach litter that is mostly composed of plastic. This is a sign of an environmental crisis,” said Renjith Radhan, a researcher from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT-B) and the National Centre for Polar and Ocean (NCPOR), Goa. A study by IIT-B stated that around “700 marine species are affected by marine plastic pollution.” Babu Rao Kalapala, Retired Chief Scientist of the Indian Institute of Chemical Technology said, “Sea is not a dustbin to throw off all unwanted stuff into it. Coastal cities let the drainage flow into the sea. Most of the times, industrial effluents contaminate the seawater. Aqua life gets disturbed by water pollution. Strict rules must be framed by the government for releasing waste into the seawater.” Is anyone listening?