April 19th – Shankhumukham
– by Vidya Gopalakrishnan (Vids)
Buahahahahaha!! I feel like blogging!!! 
[Which means it's not gonna be to-the-point! 
]
This Sunday, I knew that Cris wouldn’t be able to make it since she had to go to her office. I had to wake her up from her Saturday morning slumber to find out that, sorry!!!
has this habit of freaking me out, telling me to take charge of things when she has to stay away from TidyCity activities due to office-work! And Aneesh has this habit of telling everyone that I am in charge of things and then asking ME what has to be done next, when Cris is missing! And I have the habit of talking in my highest pitch when Cris says something that vaguely translated means, I have to take charge! 
hehe! Till now, I have been saved by the presence of a member who CAN take charge of things! And this time when I broke into the “high-pitch”, she calmed me down by saying that Nithin will be there and all I have to do is to BE there!
Anyway, I reached Shankhumukham and waited near the park to spot any fellow TidyCity-ians who might have reached there. I didn’t know who all were coming, except Nithin and Sreenath. Sreenath had called me from Medical College, asking which bus he was supposed to take to reach Shankhumukham, and I having gone to Medical College less than 10 times (one for my birth, 22 years back ) wasn’t sure that I was giving the right directions! So I knew that, if at all he makes it, it’s gonna be a miracle!
But I saw Srijith some time later, standing a long way in front of my car. But by the time I took my things and got there, he was missing! I had been informed earlier by him that he won’t be coming, so I seriously doubted whether it was just my imagination! But he again emerged out from some stone-house kind of thing, and on reaching there, I saw the other members:
’s house to get the placards.
After distributing the badges, we moved to the beach area where we planned to fill the bottles with sand, making it heavier for the wind to blow them away. I must not forget to mention the discussion we had over filling the bottles whether with water or sand! hehe!!! Bindu opted water and Aneesh opted sand! Anil said that we must fill alternate ones with sand and water and I said that we should fill each bottle with halfway sand and halfway water, of course, we were not helping!
After we filled the bottles (with sand alone!!) we decided that we should arrange the bottles to say “NO PLASTIC” and also to incorporate a skull and crossbones (which was only a vague idea until Arun sculpted it marvelously out of sand! 
) We did a test run on a somewhat deserted side of the beach! We didn’t know whether there were enough bottles to spell it out. But it seemed like we had more than enough! I said that we could photograph the test run and then refer the photo while doing the actual one! I thought it was a pretty good idea, but suddenly everyone started laughing! 
Meanwhile, Nithin
and Sreenath made it there as well! Some people had already become curious during the test run!
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Anyway, we moved to a hilly side of the beach where we planned to do the actual work. It came out really well, and it looked impressive too! (I will put up the pics soon. Right now, I can’t upload them as my card reader is not working 
) Kudos to the guys for doing such a good job! We kept the Powerpoint presentation running in the laptop continuously in front of our bottle display. Children kept playing near the display and when they were becoming a serious threat to it , Aneesh went and sat uphill to guard it!!!
People started coming and asking questions to us, a few of them signed up to join. And some of them were given awareness by Bindu regarding the ill-effects of burning plastic. There was a family which said that they were trying their most to avoid plastic by taking big-shoppers along for shopping and disposed plastic by burying them in the ground. The response was quite nice, really better than what we’ve had till now Nithin was jotting down email ids and phone numbers in his diary, and Srijith was doing the same in his mobile. It seemed like we’ve successfully passed the message to at least a few people out there. I’m glad that we did this, I’m sure everyone is.
This method of awareness seemed to yield better results than our usual clean-ups, maybe it’s because we provided lots of things for people to see and wonder, and thereby, lure them! This time, we were out there and reachable to the people too. We should have had better planning and better materials, but there is always a next time to correct mistakes. This proved to be a success, and I must tell you, I felt this as the most satisying work we’ve done, though I think it’s partly because we didn’t have any activities for the past two weeks! hehehe!!!
And thanks a lot to Siva for dropping Aneesh, Bindu and me The Tattooist ipod in our respective homes!
A report called BIOTECH, Aneesh writes
– by Aneesh R
Hey folks…..
I am pretty much sure that if I don’t post about our last meeting with the Biotech director, Chris is going to kick me outta Tidy city … I am already in her black list now for ‘I wont say’ reasons..
Okay, right to the point … The appointment was fixed for 12 .30 pm with Mr. Shaji, director of Biotech and by the time I reached the spot (a bit late ) Bindu and Piyush were there all ready for the meeting. After a brief introduction to the receptionist and waiting for about 5 minutes, we were called into the Director’s cabin. We took the seats offered to us and gave an introduction about Tidy city and our activities. I think, I should really thank Piyush for giving a vivid and detailed portrayal and thereby instilling some sense into the wayward description I was giving.
After an overview of our organization and events, we enquired about their area of expertise and the arenas in which they could co operate with us and thereby help us in enhancing our activities.
This is what we learned from Mr Shaji about Biotech
• It is a NGO working in the filed of innovative waste disposal techniques.
• They are approved and partly aided by Central Government.
• They have installed biogas digesters for managing food waste and other organic waste in many house holds and institutes.
• Have received many accolades both in the national and international level.
Now onto the Q and A session
We put forward various problems faced by us on waste management, proper disposal and in the awareness front, during our cleaning and discussion sessions to Mr Shaji . He pointed out that the issues we are facing are not due to the lack of technology or brain but because of lack of interest and few takers for such technologies.
He proposed that the best way of creating awareness is to erect one such plant in one of our houses and thereby showing the neighbors and others, the advantages of it.
He also pointed out that the bio degradable waste generated in a nuclear family is enough to sustain a burner flame for 2 continuous hours a day.
Biotech make such plants and it will take only one square meter and can even be installed in terraces .No fear of pungent smell and a part of the expense will be bore by Central Government . The only catch we saw was the cost of one such unit for a house is about Rs 12,500 (Actual cost is 15k but 2500 Rs will be subsidized by the government).
We then asked about the feasibility of having such plants at public places like Museum and Kanakakunnu where the generation of bio waste is very low. His response was that there is lot of liquid waste generated in museum which is a useful energy source and that the output can be used to the light the lamps inside the Museum campus. he told us that the organization like ours can do a lot of good work in this arena in pressurizing government and promoting people to retort to such plants .
When we raised the concern of segregation required for implementing and functionalizing such a plant, he smilingly assured us that question of segregation wont raise at all if we do it at the base itself (say our home). To our question of Corporation mixing the waste even if we segregate and give it, he replied that it is our responsibility to make the Corporation change their way. He said that an organization like ours can compel them into collecting segregated wastes separately and that we should really look into it.
Another point he raised was that compared to Biotech ,we are in better position to make people understand the advantages and the importance of biogas plants .Since biotech is a NGO and the company implementing such plants, people would always be circumspect about their motives and hence sideline them as mere profit seekers .
He was not very ken in taking sessions but said that he would take one for us if we really want .All we have to do is to contact him in advance and then fix the date ,time and place. He was of the opinion that sessions and presentations wont make a difference and that only directly displaying the advantages of one such plant can make people think about it seriously.
I am darn sure that I have missed out on one too many points .So I request Bindu and Piyush to add on to this report
PS: I have Mr Shaji’s visiting card. People who want the number, just drop in a mail or ping me.
Adios folks.
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