Tuesday, March 5, 2013

TIDY CITY

Green is Clean

15th November 2010 12:32 AM







Manu hopes to make it big in films one day, for cinema has remained his all-time passion. When he is not assisting film-directors, this young chap can sometimes be found in city’s public spots  picking up litter. For he is part of Tidy City, a blog-turned-club bound to spread the word for a clean city.
Like Manu, around 20 youngsters engaged in various vocations, who are not demystified by the non-glamorous job of picking up garbage form part of  Tidy City. It has more than 75 volunteers online and about 25 active volunteers outside the blog. They had all met at www.tidycity.org and continues to remain bonded through the site.
But what makes them special is their endeavour to take the message to the youngest population in the city through schools. The tidy city activists, some of them still students, have been approaching schools to give them one hour to send across their message to the young ones. The group has already taken awareness classes in a couple of schools where the response was more than encouraging, they say.
Tidy City’s descend from the virtual world to the real had happened last year, when during a casual conversation, one of the members suggested a clean-up in the Museum premises. And that clicked.
‘‘We meant it as a symbolic gesture. Those who watch would ask what’s it all about, some would join and some might atleast feel the need to keep the surroundings clean. We now do clean-ups once in a while at crowded areas like Kanakakunnu or Shanghumugham,’’ says Srijith, who works in a Technopark firm.
The clean-up gave enough publicity to Tidy City, but that doesn’t make things easy for them. The one hurdle the group met with was the absence of garbage bins in public places. They had to either carry bins or ask for it from authorities. After continous pestering, they could force the officials to keep bins at Museum grounds.
Then, one day they came up with another idea. ‘‘We thought why not give a larger message through a simple act? We stood in bus stands, collected tickets from those alighting from buses. We asked them what they did with the tickets otherwise. Some said they took it home, some demonstrated by tearing it apart in front of us. But we could carry the message to many. We told them to take it home and dispose it or put it in the bins. Again, we dont have bins in bus stands here, which makes it worse,’’ says Cris, who works in a web portal.
That’s when the group decided to go for a survey. They kept a keen eye on the type of garbage they mostly picked up. Bus tickets, packet covers of food items, cigarette buds, pan masala covers and so on, they were things that could be contained in public waste bins. They went ahead and prepared a ‘model street plan’ whereby they envisaged the street from Palayam martyr square to Museum as a model area, free of litter.
‘‘We approached the City Corporation with our project and requested them to install waste disposal facilities along this stretch. But they said it has already been proved useless,’’ says Anil, another volunteer.  The group is now awaiting for the new Council to get on the roll so that they can approach the Mayor again.
The group has decided to focus more on children in the meantime. ‘‘Kids listen. We just have to set them examples. They would surely go home and tell their parents or cousins. It would take our message to more places,’’ says Anand Narayanan, an IIST faculty. These days, the group is being approached by many schools to conduct awareness programmes for their students.
But there is one handicap they are facing. Shortage of volunteers. ‘‘Since there is no glamour in picking up litter in public places, people encourage but do not participate. Almost all of us are employed, so we want more people to join sans any age bar. So that this keeps going, even if we are not there. Sadly, it’s not happening,’’ says Arun Murali who is just out of college.
The other group members Akshaya, Ashith and  Javed are also looking forward to meeting new friends who love to see the city clean. Maybe one day, Thiruvananthapuram would owe much to this gang of youngsters. Till then, they would keep on telling you to love your city.
asha.nair@expressbuzz.com

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