Cleaning up and raising awareness: Recycling Festival 2011

The streets of Vrindavan are often found littered with heaps of used plastic bottles, cups, empty food packets, and other manmade wastes, collecting in the wake of the many religious visitors who come to Vrindavan on holy pilgrimage.

Residents of Vrindavan, previously accustomed to biodegradable packaging in the form of clay cups, leaf plates, and bowls, continue to toss their waste on the ground but the plastic containers in use today cannot break down. Trash collects, polluting the water supply and creating a dangerous environment for the spread of disease. This creates a serious problem for the community, but increased awareness and better options for individuals to deal with waste can make a real difference.

To take our campaign to clean up the city to the next level, FFLV hosted a Recycling Festival in celebration of Earth Day on May 4th.

The children preformed, created displays, and produced a small magazine to spread awareness about recycling throughout Vrindavan. They made musical instruments and clothing for a fashion show out of plastic bottles, old tin and cardboard boxes, old sacks, jute bags, bottle caps, dried leaves, plastic bottles, and newspaper, and used them in their performances. Groups of children sang and danced songs about protecting the planet and keeping it clean.

Three collages of old, present and future Vrindavan were made and explained by the students. Two models of old and present Vrindavan were made out of the garbage: used bottles, old boxes, tetra packs, and anything used and thrown in the streets of Vrindavan. Products from our recycling plant were for sale for the visitors. The children also wrote and printed a small magazine to create awareness. Two volunteers from Spain, Maribel and Yohanna, helped to organize the event.

By teaching students at the FFLV schools the importance of being responsible for their trash, we are able to bring awareness straight into the homes of Vrindavan residents. The children and their families see that at SMS we have recycling bins, a paper recycling plant where we send all our used paper, and our food scraps are used for compost at our organic farm. We have “clean-up” days where some of the students go and pick up trash around Vrindavan. We help people understand how easy it can be to make a difference.

Check out these pictures from the event, which was a huge success. We had many attendees, and the magazine the children produced was distributed.













2 comments:

Ash said...

This is so wonderful, maybe the students can do this festival every Earth day!?

beauty said...

You are doing a great job in the world. I would like to help you. Thanks for showing the pains of other so that they could be helped.Nice blog!