The children undertook this effort to create awareness of ill-effects of plastic use and the need to create a clean environment
Special children took out an awareness rally on eradication of plastic use here last week. Children of Young Men Christian Association Special School for the Hearing Impaired, Visalakshipuram, and YMCA Special School for the Mentally Challenged, Ellis Nagar, undertook this effort to create awareness of ill-effects of plastic use and the need to create a clean environment.
R. Keerthi Priyadarshini, IAS officer, who flagged off the rally, explained how plastics, non-biodegradable materials, turned out to be a threat to the environment. She urged the students to say ‘no’ to polythene bags and non-recyclable plastic items.
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Indian Government should do what the United Arab Emirates and other
countries have already done. They should legislate to require all
short-life plastic products (not just shopping bags) to be made from
d2w oxo-biodegradable plastic.
This type of plastic converts after its useful life by an abiotic
process in the presence of oxygen into a material with a different
molecular structure. At the end of that process it is no longer a
plastic and has become a material which is inherently biodegradable in
the same way as a leaf. Approximate timescales for degradation can be
set at manufacture as required.
The oxo-biodegradable additive can be included in normal manufacture
by Indian plastics factories without any loss of jobs, and at little
or no extra cost.If collected it can also be recycled.
Life-cycle Assessments by Intertek in 2011 and 2012 put the
environmental credentials of d2w plastic ahead of conventional
plastic, bio-based plastic, paper, and cotton and jute bags.
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