THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Realising the role of public awareness and participation in waste management, the city Corporation has decided to organise 'Green Congress' at SMV High School on December 1 and 2.
An extension of the Green Army and 'My City, Beautiful City' campaigns, the Green Congress is envisaged to add another dimension to the waste management efforts of the civic body.
"Everyone needs to have a proper understanding of waste management issues without which the success of even the best-conceived waste management plan becomes questionable. The Corporation has implemented many such facilities at various places. The event is aimed at making the public aware about using the facilities," said Mayor V K Prasanth.
Green Hunt
As part of the Green Congress, the Corporation is conducting various pre-events. Green Hunt was one of the event organised by the local body involving college students and professionals.
The Green Hunt that began from St Mary School, Pattom, concluded at Gandhi Park on Sunday. Around 17 teams participated in the event. The teams were given clues to visit and perform different tasks at the city's major spots where aerobic bins and MRF have been set up. They could only take public transportation.
The first spot was Palayam Market wherein they had to collect plastic bags from the public and provide them with a cloth bag for Rs 10. Their next spot was the Corporation office where they had to plant two saplings on the vertical garden.
From there, the team moved to Ambalamukku for a brand audit task. In their next spot at Jagathy, they were told to segregate waste.
In Kunjalumoodu, the teams were provided refreshment and were judged on how they disposed of the waste. The team then went to East Fort where they were asked to do a Facebook live on waste management and post it in Green Army's official page. The final destination was Gandhi Park.
Competitions in photography, poster designing and cartoon drawing have been planned in the high school category. Contests in watercolour painting will be conducted for students in the upper primary section while crayons-drawing competitions will be held for lower primary students on Thursday. In another event, the Chumadu Thangi band will be performing at Mall of Travancore on Sunday.
"The Corporation also plans to involve students from various flood-affected areas along with the city school students for Green Congress. This is to spread awareness among the youth on how to cope up with disasters like the floods," said Sharanniya S, a Green Army mentor.
The initiative will also have a host of competitions structured to instil awareness about the environment and waste management. Competitions on green project presentation, developing working models from discarded home appliances.