Chetanalaya Eco-Brick Making Initiative : A Solution to Pollution

 Chetanalaya Eco-Brick Making: A Solution to Pollution

The Government of India pledged to “Say No to Single Use Plastic” last year. Is it going to be easy? No way.  The consumerist culture and ‘use and throw’ attitude has flooded our daily life with single use plastic in the form of wrappers of the products, polythene bags, pouches and so on. We often do not segregate them, even if we segregate and keep, the person who removes the waste mixes it together and takes to the land fill. We witness this too in the resettlement colonies or other communities that single use plastic either reaches the drainage system or the landfill. The negative impact of single use plastic is alarming. Pope Francis calls today’s situation as a climate emergency while others may call it a climate change or climate crisis. We know that some constructive and collective action needs to be taken but we are clouded with comfort-zone thinking, ‘what can I do? The government or others have to do something.’

There is no doubt that it should be a structural decision and an effective implementation but we cannot wait for everything to happen for us. Let us make it happen. Chetanalaya Environment Education Centre has appropriated ‘Community Led Eco-Brick Making’ in the North Zone of Chetanalaya’s operational areas (Jahangirpuri, Mukundpur and Bhaleswa). The children of Neighborhood Children Parliament, the youth of Neighbourhood Youth Parliament and the women of Self Help Groups in these areas were capacitated to make eco-bricks.

The steps that the groups followed were: (i) The single use plastic of the family was gathered in a bag for 15 days or month (ii) The gathered plastics were brought to a common place (iii) The team sat around and filled the plastic into a plastic bottle tightly (The bottle should not have any space for air) (iv) The bottle became as hard as a brick (called Eco-Brick (v) The bottle was weighed based on a formula and decided whether it was usable or not (vi) If it was usable, it could be used to make bench, table, wall, boundary or any creative model. We made a model of a pot for a plant.

Eco-brick making is a solution to pollution. The first impact of Eco-brick making is that the people are becoming aware of the climate change and the role of plastic; secondly there is a change in the behavior of the people as they initiated the solution by themselves; thirdly people have stopped the single-use plastic going to drainage system and fourthly people have stopped the plastics going to the land fill and reduced the pollution level.

The act looks small but it will create a substantial change in the long run. As we journey in this process, people will say no to single use plastic and will appropriate eco-friendly options. If anyone is interested to know more about eco-brick making, please do contact us chetanalaya@gmail.com