At a time when the BMC is struggling to rein in the use of plastic bags in the city, St Mary's School (ICSE) in Mazgaon is setting a practical example for their students by installing a plastic recycling machine on campus.

It is the first school to take up such an initiative in the city, and also give practical lessons on the machine, which has the capacity of recycling 1,000 plastic bottles. According to the school officials, the PET bottle recycling machine will turn a plastic bottle into yarn (soft polyester). Industry experts claim that plastic bottles and polyester thread are actually made of the same substance — polyethene terephthalate.