THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: With development activities, comes a slew of changes in the environment. As a number of trees are facing the axe citing development projects in the city, a group of youngsters have taken it upon themselves to protect the environment and have already undertaken several green initiatives in the city. An 80,000 member Facebook group ‘Trivandrum-let’s make our City the best’ have been planting trees, clearing garbage sites and converting the areas into beautiful gardens besides beautifying the dividers on the highways.
The group has already cleaned 500 metres of the median at the Karamana-Kaliyakkavilai highway starting from Karamana Bridge. The group has also converted a 1000 sq. ft area which was filled with garbage, adjacent to Karamana Bridge, into a beautiful garden. “We have volunteers who work in different parts of the city and we have been continuously cleaning up the dumping sites. Maintenance is a must as weeds should not be allowed to grow on these flowering plants ,” said Premjith, one of the members of the ‘Clean & Green Trivandrum’. Now, the local people are taking care of the plants at the Sreekanteswaram area.
“Earlier a cleaning activity was carried out in Karamana which was clogged with all kinds of waste such as poultry, plastic and domestic waste. We have turned the dump sites into gardens in places like Fort Kochi and in Highway dividers in Trivandrum. It took around five days to clean these areas. We are soon planning to revisit these areas and clear the unwanted weeds that are harming its growth,” said Premjith.
Sutheesh K Nair, founder of The Global Green Initiative’ has also been part of the noble initiative of planting trees on medians. He has planted about 30 plants in the Karamana and Neeramankara stretch. He has also started the ‘Plastic Initiative’ where he creates awareness on the need to reduce plastic usage.