‘Green’ goodbye: Waste pickers’ cooperative collects 118 tonnes of nirmalya, diverts 31,000 idols in Pune

Last year too, the cooperative monitored the ghats during visarjan and collected 121 tonnes of nirmalya along with diverting 4,200 idols.

To enable an eco-friendly celebration, a call through traditional media and social media had over 100 volunteers at the different ghats to ensure that the nirmalya did not end up in water bodies.

“This year, the numbers concerning collection of idols has gone up tremendously, which is a positive sign showing that there is an awareness. In case of the nirmalya, the collection has grown marginally from last year’s collection. It is because people are becoming more aware. This year, we had many residents who brought the nirmalya in bags from their homes and submitted it to the SWaCH volunteers present at the ghats instead of throwing them here and there,” said Suchismita Pai, head of outreach function, SWaCH.

Priya Kathuria, project manager of SWaCH, adds, “While there is good awareness about this initiative among the old residents of the city, new residents still need to be told and convinced at the ghats. We appeal to all residents to bid farewell to Ganpati on a sustainable note by sending their dry waste for recycling and wet waste for composting through SWaCH waste pickers.”