Tired of living in littered surroundings and fed up with posting complaints to MCG and badgering SCRWA continuously, we the Citizenry of South City 1 decided to come together to help resolve our issues of waste management. SCRWA, Alagh Karo Team of Saahas NGO and Slim Homes organised a Cleanliness Drive in South City 1, on the 28th May 2023. Forty people came together for the event.
We started our plog walk (the act of picking up litter while jogging or walking) at 6.30 am and started from the Retreat Gate. We ended up at Neemwalla Park. Shalini Malhotra (C-94A) had put together a playlist with foot-tapping Bollywood parodies on discouraging littering as well as on waste- segregation. Armed with sturdy garbage bags and gloves provided by Team Alagh Karo, and with a war cry of “Ho Halla” we collected 101.59 Kg of dry waste. The messages on the Banners were clear; “Mera Kachra, Meri Zimmedari”, “South City ki Safai, Sab ki Bhalai”, and “Do not litter”.
As we spirited residents reached Neemwalla Park, we were treated to slices of cool watermelon and bananas to restore our energy. After this, children from the Sugam NGO School staged a street play in which the message of effective and responsible solid waste management at our homes, was succinctly encapsulated. Following this, was an interactive session wherein Slim Homes apprised people of how to maintain zero-waste homes and thence become a zero-waste colony. Residents like Anita Khanna (D 92), shared their experiences of composting for which they received a huge round of applause.
Shahbaz Rao from the Alagh Karo Team of Saahas NGO had the crowd cheering when he informed us that in the past five months South City 1 had diverted three hundred and nine tons of Wet Waste away from the Landfill. Thereafter Ashwani Duggal, General Secretary of SCRWA gave a vote of thanks and suggested doing Leaf composting in South City 1.
On that promising note, people left after collecting free compost (made from our wet waste at the Sector 44 Composting Unit) and bought cloth bags made out of used fabric, by Slim Homes. In addition, there were a variety of saplings for the taking. These were contributed by Seema Gupta and Pooja Bhattacharya of F Block. We were happy to have prominent residents of South City 1 in our midst, including Yash Suneja (F Block), Mukesh Malik (J Block), Parminder Dhadwal (D Block), Brig Puri (D Block), and of course Deepak Sharma.
by Dr Savita Nagpal (B-86, 9818570658)
