Hyderabad: A Waste Project is organising a clean-up drive on Thursday at the Nerella lake walkway, Kondapur with the help of volunteers from across the city.
The dried-up Nerella Lake, which is situated at a 10 minute walk from the Sarath City Mall, is strewn with plastic bottles, empty liquor bottles and plastic bags. Volunteers from across Hyderabad will be tidying up the space with some help from the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC).
Speaking about the initiative, Avinash told Siasat.com, “Our aim is to use social media as a tool to raise awareness and inculcate personal responsibility against littering. Of the 30 most polluted cities in the world, 22 are in India. We want to reach out to youth through social media and sensitise them about throwing garbage on roads and littering in their surroundings”.
A Waste Project was born out of a Reddit post made by Avinash, a Hyderabad based IT professional, informing people of his intentions to clean up garbage and asking them to join him.
He was joined by 2 more IT professionals, Nooman and Arjun, and a student, Eashwar. The four of them together organised upto 9 clean-up drives in the city. It has quickly turned into a volunteer backed organised effort to clean up public spaces in the city.
A Waste Project is inviting citizens to share images of litter and garbage in their surroundings on their social media platforms to organise the clean-up drives and also to join them at the Nerella Lake walkway clean up on Thursday.
The team provides gloves, masks and garbage collection bags to all the volunteers to keep them safe. Post the clean-up the before and after pictures are posted on social media to encourage netizens to keep their surroundings clean.
In the past, A Waste Project organised various clean up drives at Madhapur 100ft road, BHEL stadium, Malkam cheruvu, Raidurgam and Lanco hills lake, Manikonda.
For the last three days, the team has conducted the majority of the garbage clean up with help from 8 contract workers. On Thursday the clean up drive will be finalised with help from volunteers.
They informed that the aim is to engage people in cleaning up their surrounding in order to sensitise them against littering.
Though the cleaned spaces may be littered again, the team believes that the change created in the mindset of people would eventually bring about a lifestyle change.
The clean up drive at the Nerella Lake will begin at 7 AM and will go on for three hours.
To volunteer, drop a message to the team on Instagram @a_wasteproject.
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