Doing their bit for mother nature

A group of like-minded individuals are on mission to make environment plastic-free

Doing their bit for mother nature

A group of like-minded individuals are on mission to make environment plastic-free

Popular tourist destinations like Mahabaleshwar, Panshet may suffer environmental degradation if the litter caused by the ever-increasing number of tourists is not checked. Waking up to this call of nature, a group of professionals and students have started cleanliness drives with the help of local villagers to help keep the place green.

Tellus organisation was started by some like-minded people who wished to have a plastic-free environment. A group of 25 members from the organisation took up "Garbage free Mahabaleshwar" event on February 27 which evoked a huge response at the local village level.

The group collected garbage, plastic wrappers, gutkha pouches, discarded liquor bottles, plastic disposable plates, fruit juice cans, among others, over a distance of 10 km right from old Mahabaleshwar to Savitri point.

At least 75 bags of garbage was collected in the entire drive and handed over to the Mahabaleshwar Municipal Corporation employees for proper disposal.

A consultant by profession Lokesh Bapat (47) and his environmental science student daughter Kimaya (19) along with other members like commercial artist Vishwas Ghavte (49), Chandrashekhar Joshi (52), automobile engineer Atul Gokhale (37), gazetted officer in the Pune Meteorology Department Sumati Acharya have started the group which is planning to conduct similar cleanliness drives at other tourist destinations too.

Describing their cleanliness drive, Lokesh Bapat said: "We got a good response from the tourists present at Mahabaleshwar while we were cleaning the area. Seema Sabnis, Avanti Gokhale and Chandrasekhar Acharya from our group interacted with the tourists and spread awareness about plastic pollution and other harmful factors."

"We also requested the tourists to dispose the garbage in an appropriate manner. Having seen the drastic change in the now cleaned area, Dattatray Bavalekar, corporator of Mahabaleshwar, also appreciated the event.

He said such activities should be conducted regularly to spread awareness in the entire region for a cleaner Mahabaleshwar.

"Exciting news! Mid-day is now on WhatsApp Channels