Govt schools in Amritsar striving for sustainable waste management

Transforming schools into a learning lab for waste management, the Punjab State Council for Science & Technology and the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change had launched an environment education programme earlier this year, engaging eco-clubs in schools and colleges to create awareness on sustainable solutions to mitigate the impact of climate change. Under the project, several government schools in the district were roped in to create plastic banks, implement water audit and gradually shift towards zero-waste school campus.

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The School of Eminence, Chhehrta, was the first government school in the district to set up a plastic bank for recycling of the single-use plastic waste. A year on, the School of Eminence, Chhehrta, is taking big leaps towards making its school a zero-waste campus by managing its solid, plastic and liquid waste through several methods.

The school won the top spot in the Swacch school ranking in the district under Swacch Sarvekshan (Swacch Bharat Mission Urban) by the Amritsar Municipal Corporation four months ago. It has now set up a waste-to-wealth lab, where students from Class 6 onward are encouraged to create items of use from waste paper, fabrics and e-waste. Kuldeep Kaur, a biology teacher at the SOE, Chherhrta, along with other teachers has been mentoring students in solid liquid waste management techniques.

“We set up a plastic bank last year and now all our single-use plastic waste is collected and recycled or resourced. Similarly, we have set up two huge compost pits in the campus, where garden and plant waste collected from our school grounds is put down for mulching and composting. The school also conducts water audit to check wastage of water,” she informed.

As many as 220 government senior secondary schools (10 in each district) in the state now have water, biodiversity and hygiene clubs that improve sanitation and hygiene practices and help in the conservation of natural resources. In Amritsar, the School of Eminence, Mall road, also runs an education programme for students, teaching them sustainable garbage disposal methods through vermi-composting and mulching. Apart from that, government senior secondary schools in Nawankot, Kot Khalsa, Karampura, Town Hall too have set up plastic banks and conduct water audits.