Thiruvananthapuram: A Facebook profile frame announcing the Green Congress is spreading the word in its own small way about the school event being organised by Thiruvananthapuram corporation at Carmel HSS, Vazhuthacaud, on Saturday. Its creator, Aswaghosh Syndhav, is a class IX student and a strong campaigner for sustainable waste management methods. This boy can tell one plastic from the other. "There are both recyclable and non-recyclable plastic. Tetrapacks cannot be recycled. Look for recycling codes. The higher the code, the better the quality of the plastic. Still, plastic is plastic and one should reduce its usage," he says.
He worries a lot about pollution, especially caused by incinerators at schools. His school, St Mary's HSS, Pattom, has three incinerators. “It is unsegregated waste that goes in. When I pass by, I can smell the odour of pen and varnish paper being burnt. There are classrooms where the students have to inhale it all year,” he says. He never got a platform to share his concerns. "I am not complaining. I am pointing out an issue for it to be solved," he says. He didn't wait to turn 18 so that he can read about ways to live sustainably. (Of course, it helped that his family was sensitive about eco-friendly choices.)
But he says it was the Green Army, Thiruvananthapuram corporation's awareness initiative for school students, which spurred him on. At his school, only HSS students are inducted into the Green Army. But he has been part of the corporation's first summer camp forming Green Army. Moreover, he has accompanied his father T.C. Rajesh as a volunteer for a lot of Green Army events. It is likely that one will meet many more brilliant youngsters like him at the Green Congress.
