KOCHI: It could be another revolution in the making. Students of St Teresa’s College, Kochi, have joined hands with Kudumbashree and the Suchitwa Mission to wipe out the menace of plastic from Kerala landscape and leave a better planet for the generations to come. In the state capital on Thursday the lawmakers and bureaucrats were given a tip of what is in the making when they got the eco-friendly bags the alliance produced.
Some 25 to 30 members of three Kudumbasree units in Kochi are now engaged in making the cloth bags designed by St Teresa’s students led by economics department head Nirmala Padmanabhan, who conceived the idea. They collected materials from different parts of the district and the products under Bhoomithram and Prakrithi brands are marketed by students themselves and of late the Suchitwa Mission too jumped on the bandwagon.
Ms Padmanabhan hit on the idea after she conducted a waste audit under Gulati Institute of Finance and Taxation in a project supported by the World Bank in 2014. “Though it is estimated that the general prevalence of plastic is 5.5-6.6 percent, the audit revealed that in villages, this had gone up to 10 percent mostly plastic carry bags followed by plastic bottles. We surveyed Ezhikkara village in Ernakulam district, Kanjiramkulam in Thiruvananthapuram, Marutharode in Palakkad and Nenmeni in Wayanad. All these places had above 10 percent. So we thought of bringing this down by encouraging the use of cloth bags and hit on the idea of making them,” she said.
The project called Bhoomithra was launched one and a half years back and used clothes the students collected were predominantly used to make the foldable carry bags. “Later we identified that there are people who prefer new clothes and collected cut pieces left out in the tailoring shops around Convent Junction near St Teresa’s College and other areas and made new trendy bags and purses under the ‘Prakrithi’ brand,” she said.
The bags are available in strawberry, carrot, ball, purse and carry bag and backpack shapes and other trendy ones. “We predominantly use cotton clothes. Many are unaware that rexin is non-degradable. On the other hand, tailoring shops ship their clothe waste to Brahmapuram which is now creatively used. The bags are made under the Society of Teresians for Environment Protection (STEP) formed under the Entrepreneurship Development Club and Bhoomithra Sena Club,” she said.
The philosophy that attracted Suchitwa Mission is of waste reduction, recycling and material resource recovery from landfilling and burning. Around 100 students are involved from the college currently in the project. “They have learnt how a business operates including finance management and marketing. They are given credits to study in the autonomous college for the project,” said Mrs Nirmala.
The capital of Rs 1 lakh for the venture was given by The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) interest-free while it has promised Rs 2 lakh more. The cost of the Bhoomithra bags which use both old and new clothes (for exterior) now range from Rs 50 to 90 and Prakrithi bags which entirely use new clothes range from Rs 150 to 350 which has metal clamps and can be attached to another bag.
Kudumbasree East CDS Darsana unit president Tasneem Azad said that ten of them are working women, and they make the bags during their spare time, and it becomes their extra income. “They also take classes and collect new material,” said Ms Azad. Mrs Nirmala said that their aim was to take the project to the length and breadth of the state.
