THE hordes of flex banners used by the mandals across the Mumbai Metropolitan Region during the 10-day-long Ganesh Utsav, as well as those used by political parties during this time, may finally be useful in a unique way — to recycle into ‘aasans’ or floor mats for schools in the rural side of the state and in tribal areas where benches are not available for schoolchildren, due to which they have to sit on the floor. 

Mumbai-based NGO Greensole, which has been working for the past ten years in recycling urban waste products, is tying up with local Ganesh mandals to provide them with used flex banners instead of discarding them after the festival. 

The NGO helps rural and tribal schools. Using recycled materials, they make school kits such as school bags, backpacks, slippers, shoes, mats, etc for the schoolchildren. While the backpacks are made from recycled clothes donated from citizens, the footwear is made from recycling unusable old footwear, also donated by the citizens.