About

Tarumitra

Tarumitra, meaning “Friends of Trees” in Hindi and Sanskrit, is a students’ movement to protect and promote a healthy environment on Earth. Started by school students with support from Jesuits in Patna, India in 1988, the movement has spread into hundreds of high schools and colleges all over India. It has over 300,000 members in over 2000 high schools and colleges. Tarumitra has also had several full time volunteers from India and abroad.

footprint

Is brainchild of inter-school debate held at Tarumitra Bio-reserve. It focuses on common habit change for climate change of citizen in urban population. Research reason behind failure of three major pillars of sustainable cities – Waste Management, Traffic Awareness, Social Responsibility. Develop viable solutions to curb our carbon footprint.

Mission

Equip youth to make informed choice of habit & behavioral change to become future ready citizen as per demand of changing lifestyle.

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Simple idea to reduce our plastic footprint

Habit Change for Climate Change

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A campaign to engage youth to make informed choice of habit & behavioural change to unleash a new movement of action that will seek to reduce plastic waste where it matters most : Drains, Rivers and Oceans. Segregate plastic waste at source to enable its way for Circular Economy in coordination with Extended Producers Responsibility policy approach. Plastic being a major catalyser in enabling our modern life, impacts of plastic mismanagement paints an unequivocally toxic picture. One of the major threats to biodiversity is mismanagement of single use plastic(SUP). Our production and consumption of single-use plastics and our inability to manage plastic waste sustainably have led to a massive pollution problem. Marine litter and microplastics are flooding our oceans and are hurting marine ecosystems and human health on an unprecedented scale.

Plastic is widely used in all the sectors of the world due to its numerous practical characteristics like light weight, reaction resistance and flexibility. From food packaging to electronic and machinery components, plastic is part of every thing we use in our daily life. Plastic in the current COVID situation has shielded humanity to curb pandemic when we had nothing else to look for. It acted as a shield for millions of health workers and others engaged in their professional life in the form of PPE or masks.

A campaign to engage youth to make informed choice of habit & behavioural change to unleash a new movement of action that will seek to reduce plastic waste where it matters most : Drains, Rivers and Oceans. Segregate plastic waste at source to enable its way for Circular Economy in coordination with Extended Producers Responsibility policy approach. Plastic being a major catalyser in enabling our modern life, impacts of plastic mismanagement paints an unequivocally toxic picture. One of the major threats to biodiversity is mismanagement of single use plastic(SUP). Our production and consumption of single-use plastics and our inability to manage plastic waste sustainably have led to a massive pollution problem. Marine litter and microplastics are flooding our oceans and are hurting marine ecosystems and human health on an unprecedented scale.

Plastic being a major catalyser in enabling our modern life, impacts of plastic mismanagement paints an unequivocally toxic picture. One of the major threat to biodiversity is mismanagement of single use plastic(SUP).

Our taken for granted attitude is questioning survival of various species inhabiting on earth along with humans. The problem gets predominantly worsened with the rampant use of Single Use Plastic and throwing them without a concern which block the waterways, endangers marine ecosystem, exacerbate natural disasters and when burnt emit toxic emissions.

Plastic packaging accounts for nearly half of all plastic waste in India, much of which is thrown away just a few minutes of acquiring. Some discarded in landfills other thrown in open environment.

India generated 9.46 million tonnes of plastic waste annually or about 946,000 truckloads at 10 tonnes a truck. Nearly 40% of this waste remains uncollected, as per the environment ministry.

While glass and metal and particular types of plastic such as polyethylene terephthalate (PET), high-density polyethylene (HDPE) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) are being recycled with some efficiency in India. However other plastic waste such as polystyrene (PS), polypropylene (PP), and low-density polyethylene (LDPE) poses a significant challenge in recycling because of its low density less economic value at the same time collection of scattered and soiled plastics is a labour-intensive exercise, and needs to be washed. Due to scum reasons, these plastics are left unattended at dump sites and various brilliant ideas of recycling and utilising SUP is suppressed causing long term negative impact on the environment.

Some are burnt, some are eaten by stray animals with eatable thrown at waste dumpsites, some makes their way to rivers via drain and rest is collected by Muncipal corporation to be leaked again in environment from unscientific landfills. Inefficient public waste management services throughout India often present a source of employment and livelihoods for informal waste pickers,

Government Interventions

Government of various states have tried banning single use plastic carry bags and raided shopkeepers, vegetable vendors however no attempts were made to curb single use plastic packaging on almost all products which accounts for 74% of SUP pollution. It’s high time we need to realise and define this era as plastic culture and inculcate habits supporting our lifestyle with plastic products.

In 2016 Government of India notified Plastic Waste Management Rules 2016. The new rules will now be extended to the village level to ensure proper plastic waste management at the grassroots level where plastic is now much in use. Conceding that a countrywide ban on plastic is not practical in the absence of a suitable eco-friendly alternative, the rules call for comprehensive overhauling of plastic waste management systems. It introduced policy driven approach Extended Producers Responsibility(EPR) to ensure a collect back system of plastic waste by the producers/brand owners, collection of plastic waste management fee through pre-registration of the producers, importers of plastic carry bags/multilayered packaging and vendors selling the same for establishing the waste management system.

The PWM Rules 2016 further call for using plastic waste for road construction as per Indian Road Congress guidelines or energy recovery, or waste to oil etc. for gainful utilisation of waste and also address the waste disposal issue. To entrust more responsibility on waste generators, namely payment of user charge as prescribed by local authority, collection and handing over of waste by the institutional generator, event organisers

The idea of extended producer responsibility (EPR), which was introduced in the rules of 2016, remained nowhere close to being implemented even after two years. An extension for implementation of EPR was notified in Plastic Waste Management (Amendment) Rules 2018. A Committee was constituted to evaluate mechanism for implementation of EPR in 2017. Committee has worked out models for a uniform framework for EPR and after consultation with various stakeholders the final draft guideline document on Uniform Framework on EPR is prepared. It was published in June 2020 on MoEFCC website

Uniform Framework on EPR 2020

Tarumitra's Intervention

In 2018 when India hosted World Environment Day under theme #BeatPlasticPollution, series of discussions on plastic pollution with students of various schools and colleges in Tarumitra revealed that 100% of participants considered recycling as an acceptable method and unaware of policies on Plastic Waste even after more than two years of notification in Gazette of India, 73% agreed lack of awareness to segregate waste. 34% claimed to segregate only high-value waste to be sold to recyclers. To curb plastic pollution 67% suggested avoiding buying any goods with too much packaging however 73% of participants agreed to take responsibility to dispose of it separately to enable its way to recycling.

It also helped us understand our behaviour towards the waste we generate. Due to lack of knowledge on severe consequences of plastic mismanagement, careless attitude and unawareness on policies on plastic waste management we mix our waste, voiding its chances of recycling. People find it convenient to use plastic carry bags to stuff all kinds of waste together for disposal is the biggest challenge for circular economy to function. Segregating mixed waste even with the use of modern technology and infrastructure is unsustainable and has more environmental impact than resources recovered, as machinery used in such plants consumes huge amount of water and energy.

Mixed Municipal Solid Waste is being utilised to raise landscape at various locations of the city and Municipal Waste Collection vendors too are dumping mixed waste at unscientific landfill sites aggregating the problem at large.

Over several ideas, an idea to imprison single use plastic in PET bottles to make “ecobrick” was accepted by most of the participants as it as it would require least space to store segregated single use plastic and uncontaminated from the rest of the waste. This idea to make ecobrick will not allow single use plastic to contaminate the environment, won’t clog the drains, would prevent from going to water bodies and stray animals won’t be able to eat them. Finally could be given to recyclers or can be easily picked up by rag pickers if found unattended for extra income and could be aligned with EPR.

Tarumitra members joined to clean Ganga ghats in collaboration with NSS and Bihar State Pollution Control Board. Conducted flash mobs, awareness campaigns to raise awareness on the issue however were not very successful in changing public behavior towards plastic mismanagement.

Students of various school joined the campaign to store segregated single use plastic in 750 ml plastic bottles to make hut in Tarumitra until we have channel to bring it in circular economy.

Tarumitra members joined to clean Ganga ghats in collaboration with NSS and Bihar State Pollution Control Board. Conducted flash mobs, awareness campaigns to raise awareness on the issue however were not very successful in changing public behavior towards plastic mismanagement.

A knowledge based informed choice program focused on Knowledge Expansion, Capacity Building, Change in Attitudes, Behaviour and Habit towards impact of plastic mismanagement has been conducted with group of student members form various Educational Institutions in our campus. Students were be exposed to problems of plastic mismanagement, national legislation on plastic waste, identifying various stakeholders and roles and responsibilities. An interactive presentation followed by discussion and hands on practical learning, in situation role-plays of stakeholders (of policy maker, manufacturer, citizens, rag pickers, other living beings trapped in plastic/eating plastic) to identify different perspective and generate viable ideas to overcome the bottleneck for implementation of robust ideas in coordination with policies on plastic waste.