Amritsar civic body launches Zero Waste Schools Programme

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, August 10

The municipal corporation in collaboration with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Council on Energy, Environment and Water has launched Zero Waste Schools Programme in several schools in the city. The programme aims to engage students, school managements in educating and adopting sustainable waste management practices in schools and conducting waste audits.

The programme was launched pan Punjab earlier this year and engaged stakeholders from both public and private, students and officials of the local municipal departments. Recently, a workshop on waste segregation and collection was held under the programme at Shri Guru Harkrishan International School and 10 other schools, including School of Eminence (SoE), Chheharta. This is a six-month programme and teams of waste management experts from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Council on Energy, Environment and Water educate students on waste management techniques.

“It’s an educative and insightful programme that aims to sensitise students and engage schools’ managements purposefully to work towards sustainable solutions. What is waste and how should each category of waste, including dry, wet and other, be disposed of. These are some important aspects to learn and implement for waste management,” said Dapinder Kaur, principal, Sri Guru Harkrishan International School, Ranjit Avenue.

The programme aims to cover 27,400 government and private schools in the state and reach out to more than 50 lakh students.

The Amritsar MC has also launched the Clean School Programme, under which manuals on waste collection, segregation and management are being dispersed in schools.

Priyanka Singh, programme lead, Council on Energy, Environment and Water, who had earlier launched the Zero Waste Audit Programme in Amritsar in May, had shared that understanding the critical role that schools play in shaping community behaviours, this will subsequently help in amplifying the Zero Waste Schools Programme.

“It aims to harness the potential of teachers and students as change agents. The idea for the programme came during the Council on Energy, Environment and Water and USAID’s IDEAtor Fellowship Programme under the Cleaner Health and Better Health (CABH) project. The fellowship has been designed to help young people solve community problems. Schoolchildren worked with industry professionals and Council on Energy, Environment and Water researchers to develop waste audit methods for institutions,” she informed.