Waste Upcycling At Old Age Home In Pune
A plastic bottle can take about 450 years to breakdown. Whereas, cards and papers take upto 5 months to decompose.
Excessive usage of plastic in today’s world has created extreme hazards for the environment and an immediate attention is required to curb its use and misuse. With this concern, the Earth5R team headed to St. John’s Home for Women and Children, which was started in 1889 by English nuns. They support older women, the sick, widows, children from broken homes, retired, and the orphaned, destitute or deserted children.
The Pune team at Earth5R had an Upcycling workshop on 15th February, 2016 at St. John’s Home for Women and Children. The team demonstrated two activities under up-cycle project. The members who participated in this activity were Umang Purvar, Tejashree Sathe, Prateek Rampuria and Shriyam Jalan.
The first activity involved reusing empty cans, jars, bottles to make decorative and useful pencil holders, vases and dustbins. The second activity engaged people to make envelopes using wedding cards. The materials used for this activity were newspapers, cards, gum and a pair of scissors which were readily available. Along with these activities, the team explained them the importance of waste management and re-cycling. It was a fun filled activity and involved the community of this old age home to build creative products out of waste and to explain them how re-use of waste materials can help the environment.
Keeping the above mentioned facts in mind. Making best out of such wastes was an option that served viable and productive. It increases the usability of plastic and also prevents it from depreciating environments quality heavily. Also, the ladies at old age home were lonely and unaware of such facts and the team spent time with them teaching them the basics of sustainability. They were great learners and in exchange, they imparted life lessons to the team.
Earth5R team will keep organizing such workshops in the future for a green and beautiful future for the Earth that the upcoming generations can admire.
–Report by Prateek Rampuria. Edited by Pragya Lodha and Saritha Ramanjaneyulu,. Graphic design by Pratik Dhamapurkar.
