Seeing how ecological pollution has become a formidable challenge facing the world today, with India being no exception, some non-government organisations (NGOs) in the city have joined hands to cooperate and take strong initiatives in cleaning up the city after the end of the festive Ganesh Chaturthi season. Lolita Gupta, team member of eCoexist, a social enterprise company which collaborates with various NGOs on several joint ventures in the city says, “We are in the third year of the Nirmalya Project initiative, which, in association with Kagad Kach Patra Kashtakari Panchayat (KKPKP), a union of waste collectors and rag-pickers, collect discarded nirmalya (biodegradable waste such as flowers, leaves, fabric, fruits and coconuts) for recycling purposes instead of letting it rot in the local lakes and rivers. We have deployed four-five women rag-pickers at each of the local ghats, to collect the biodegradable nirmalya and segregate it from the non-biodegradable waste like plastic and thermocol.”

The objective of the Nirmalya Project is to enable the respectful and organised management of sacred offerings, which are generally brought along with the idols to the river, through segregation and recycling, as well as provide destitute areas of the city with unspoiled food retrieved from the nirmalaya. eCoexist, which promotes ecosensitive products, also helps women prisoners in the Yerwada Central Jail earn some extra money by hiring them to convert the gathered dried flowers into natural colour powders. The rest of the waste is composted at the Yerwada jail.

Shabana Diler is the operations manager for the Swach initiative, a Pune Municipal Commission (PMC)-supported project, which hires women ragpickers for the segregation collection and enables them to earn a supplemental income besides adding one more element to the efforts to keep the river and the ghats free from pollution. “Our primary goal is to spread awareness on the hazards of performing visarjan in natural lakes and rivers. Swach, which deals with door-step waste collection, ensures that the Ganpati idols immersed in the lakes are recollected and given a proper, respectful re-immersion in PMC constructed artificial ponds,” informs Diler. This year, the Nirmalya Project received corporate sponsorship from groups such as Young Indians (CII) and Emcure Pharmaceuticals to provide buckets, uniforms, raincoats and gloves to the women for the task involved.

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