Angul Youths making Eco-bricks with plastic wastes

A surge in plastic waste has been a major concern for all of us as we see tonnes of plastic waste dumped in landfills which often leads to the creation of artificial mountains over the years or clogs water bodies and drains or scattered across streets.

With an aim to aware people of plastic waste management, a group of 13 youths from Angul are making eco-bricks to use in construction works.

The members of Sathee Parivar have set a target to prepare 1000 bricks with plastic bottles and fill them with polythene.

“We are preparing eco bricks using plastic bottles and polythene. We will prepare a pit of around 3 feet in BN High school, Angul for tree plantation and use these bricks to construct boundary around plants to give a beautiful look and protection,” shared Subrat Kumar Pradhan, Secretary of Sathee Parivar.

“We decided to do this in a school, as it will be visible to everyone and students will see it which will also motivate them to think about the environment and its conservation,” he added.

They have already made around 800 bricks and are planning to finish the construction work by next week. “We are also planning to make a platform around trees with these bottles,” he added.

They collected waste polythene and plastic bottles from various places and market areas. “We connected with various shop owners, and vendors and told them to save their plastic waste for us. We collected them in one week,” informed Subrat.

To prepare one brick it takes 300 grams of plastics, as of now they have used 2 quintals of plastics.

“Plastic waste is a problem and need to come up with steps to deal with it. This is just a small effort to reduce plastic waste and utilise them,” he shared.

The members recently also conducted a cycle rally to spread awareness about forest fires in three divisions of Angul, Athagarh, and Satkosia. “We do this every year and our focus is always to cover schools as students are going to face environmental problems in the future. We need to prepare them from now and encourage them to work for the conservation of nature,” shared Subrat.

They are also trying to create mini forests in urban areas for which government lands are identified where trees are planted. “We manage the plants for three years after plantations. It is easy to plant a sapling but its conservation is important so that it could survive and become a tree,” he shared.

In 2017 they did a campaign for nail-free trees. The youngsters also carry out various other campaigns related to the environment.