Undeterred by the failure of its previous attempt to make Nanganallur free of polythene bags, the Inner Wheel Club of Nanganallur has come up with a new initiative. The initiative is just a week old and the club is awaiting to see the response to it. Under the recently-introduced exercise, the forum has placed an iron mesh container at a provisional store on Nanganallur Third Main Road. The container will have cloth bags. The club requests the customers of the shop to use those cloth bags instead of accepting polythene bags from the shop.
The club has placed an order for 30-iron mesh containers which are sponsored by the Nanganallur branch of Union Bank of India (UBI). Those containers will be placed in 30 provisional stores in Nanganallur which witnesses a good footfall. The cloth bags are also sponsored by the bank. Besides, the club members have also contributed a few bags. The club also invites residents to drop cloth bags into the box and be a part of the campaign.
A few years ago, the club made an ambitious attempt to make the flower vendors of Nanganallur get into the habit of using plantain leaves to sell their flowers. But the initiative did not go well with the vendors as they found polythene bags much cheaper price-wise and quite handy.
“As there was no cooperation on the part of the vendors, the previous campaign did not make any progress; so, we switched our focus towards provisional stores. But it does not mean that we have given up the idea of encouraging vendors to return to the traditional practice of using banana leaves. Though we did not succeed, we will certainly resume our previous exercise. There are around 50 temples and 200 flower vendors in Nanganallur. So, just imagine the number of polythene bags generated by them in a day. In the first phase, the club has plans to sponsor banana leaves. We will also approach the temple authorities and the residents to extend their support in whatever way possible. We have to devise some sustainable methods so that the practice of using leaves to sell flowers comes to stay in the long run. Sponsorships do not offer long-term solutions,” says Jayalakshmi Suryanarayanan, former president of the Club.
At the launch of the new initiative, the Inner Wheel Club of Nanganallur thanked G. K. Sudhakar Rao, Deputy General Manager, Union Bank of India, Chennai, who made arrangements to sponsor the iron containers.
“We sponsored the mesh containers as part of UBI's corporate social responsibility. Earlier, the bank had associated with the Club for an initiative involving the education of girl children," says G.K. Sudhakar Rao.
