THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The students of Mar Baselios College of Engineering and Technology (MBCET) gathered at the college auditorium by 12.30 pm on Friday for a special event. More than a thousand of them, each carrying a paper sheet and a glass containing gum, took their seat in the auditorium.
All faces gleamed with excitement. The students were, in fact, attempting to enter the Limca Book of Records, that too innovatively.
When MBCET bursar Fr Wilson Thattaruthundil gave the signal, all the students and some teachers started pasting the sides of the paper sheet, which soon turned into a bag. All together, 1,102 paper bags were made by the students and teachers within two minutes.
Not just an attempt to enter the Limca Book of Records, the mass event was meant to spread awareness about the menace of plastic. With the motto ‘Use paper, live safer,’ the students made paper carry bags, which they will later use for the upcoming event ‘Crossroads.’
The entire event was recorded on video in the presence of two gazetted officers. The video footage, with the approval of the gazetted officers, will be sent to the authorities of Limca Book of Records.
The event was organised as a curtain raiser of ‘Crossroads’, an annual national-level technical and cultural extravaganza organised by MBCET. Crossroads will be held during February 23-26.
According to Rejish Babu, lecturer at the Department of Electrical & Electronics Engineering, the students thought of doing something different for the curtain raiser.
“The students of NIT did something similar before. Together, they ate chocolates to promote the brand. Our students decided to do something different and came up with this idea,” he said.
MBCET student Jeffin Mathew Jose, who contributed the idea of the mass event, said: ‘’We had been using a lot of plastics for distributing items during events like Crossroads in the past. We were thinking of avoiding plastics and using paper. This time we did it.”