Police, students join hands to battle plastic waste

Under the scheme, Social Thinking on Environmental Pollution (STEP), the Kerala Police Association (KPA) unit of the Kollam City police and students of select schools in the city joined hands to free the city of the menace of plastic waste. The scheme has adopted ‘unite for the world’ as its theme.

Pro-people face

Inaugurating the scheme on the campus of the Pattathanam Government SNDP Upper Primary School on Monday, the Minister for Fisheries J. Mercykutty Amma said the police force taking up such a programme goes a long way in revealing a pro-people face of the police. It forms part of the State government policy for the police, she said.

The government is keen that all government and aided schools in the State should become centres of excellence.

This is important in the present scenario because commercialisation of the education sector is witnessing a growing deterioration in the relationship between students and managements of educational institutions, especially of the self-financing stream. Programmes such as STEP will go a long way in making students responsible citizens, she said.

The function was presided over by KPA district president B.S. Sanoj. Mayor V. Rajendrababu delivered the keynote address. M. Noushad, MLA, and the City Police Commissioner S. Sathish Bino spoke.

KPA district secretary Jiju S. Nair said that STEP targets collection and processing for reuse of plastic waste.

20 centres

To begin with, there will be 20 collection centres based at select school and police stations coming under the limits of the Kollam City police.