This is how my college implements Green Tech
I study at ABES Engineering College which is located in Ghaziabad city of Uttar Pradesh state of India. In this blog, I am going to share the story of my college, telling how Green initiatives have been adopted and implemented across the campus.
Environment Club
Our college has a dedicated club that conducts various environment-awareness programs timely. It is called the ENVIRON CLUB. It conducts various rallies wherein people of the nearby towns and villages are made aware of the current environmental issues and the ways to tackle them. Debates and poetry competitions are organized which focus mainly on sustainable development ideas. Poster making competitions are conducted in which poster is to be made using waste materials so that people can implement reusability by being creative. Timely tree planting sessions are conducted across the campus wherein club members, college students, professors, and even director sir and college founders too participate actively.
Recyclable Project files
My college offers 4 courses: B.Tech, M.Tech, MCA, and MBA. Let me tell you about B.Tech alone. There are 9 branches in B.Tech, with around 200 students in each branch. We have to make 4 practical files every semester. Files had a plastic cover over them. So the total amount of plastic covers wasted per semester were
= Branch * no. of students * files per student
= 9 * 200 * 4
= 7,200.
That sums up to around 14,400 plastic waste generated per year by just B.Tech only. We needed to do something regarding this.
The ENVIRON Club raised this issue and proposed using cardboard files in place of plastic files. The director accepted this proposal and from the following semesters, everyone was using these cardboard files which were eco-friendly as well as pocket-friendly too.
Welcoming guests
My college conducts a lot of seminars and cultural events. The auditorium is generally occupied daily, sometimes multiple times a day.
When I went to the auditorium for the first time, an orientation seminar was conducted for first-year students. Many guests were invited including alumni, director sir, ex-professors, and many more. When the welcoming session of guests started, I expected everyone to be welcomed by a bouquet; a beautiful bouquet composed of preserved/artificial flowers wrapped in a polythene sheet.
I was wrong! The guests were welcomed by a beautiful sapling which was enclosed in an earthen pot. After the seminar, the guests were taken to the college stadium, on the boundary of which they planted their saplings.
Four years now, I haven't seen this beautiful tradition being skipped for even once.
Sanitary napkins disposal
I lived in the girls' hostel at my campus. There were around 400 girls residing there composed of all courses, branches, and years. Every month during their menstruation, they would have been using 6 napkins at least. Each napkin consists of a Polyethylene back cover which makes it waterproof. So, every month 2400 Polyethylene waste products were being generated from the girls' hostel, which was dumped with other biodegradable/non-biodegradable products, and hence, the plastic back cover napkin was left out improperly in the environment forever.
My college found a very amazing solution for that. They installed a Sanitary Napkin Incinerator in the washroom. It had a small tray wherein the girls were supposed to throw their used napkins. After pressing the ignition button, the napkin got converted into ashes, without even emitting a single trace of smoke.
I feel this was a very revolutionary step taken by the college administration. This machine should be installed in every public place and hostels. A lot of plastic could be easily wiped out of the environment without any harm.
My personal project
In my second year, I made a project for the farming industry. It was a Plant Moisture Monitoring System. It was my effort to help farmers by letting them know the right amount of water to be poured into farms depending upon the crop type. For example, the field is having a rice crop. The Rice crop may die because of excess or insufficient amount of irrigation. So, my project raised an alarm whenever the moisture level in the plant exceeded or dropped below the amount of moisture required by the rice plant. If the correct amount of moisture is provided, then crops could grow better. Not only crops but home kitchen gardens could flourish better and your neighboring trees could bloom more.
So, all these are some efforts made by me and my college over the past years in order to Go Green in a technical organization.
I’d like to know your stories too. Drop your thoughts and links in the comment below.
Thank you!
