World Environment Day observed in city

Ahmedabad: Slew of events marked the World Environment Day on Monday as several organizations participated in tree plantation drives, workshops and seminars to reduce plastic waste, drawing and elocution competitions and special activities. The day was made special with start of the schools in city after summer vacations.Gujarat, chief minister, Bhupendra Patel inaugurated two plastic bottle crushing machines in city which would be placed at Kankaria Lake and Atal Bridge. This year’s theme for the celebrations was ‘Beat Plastic Pollution.’At Sundarvan in Satellite, a newly-built aviary was inaugurated with dimensions of 60 feet length and 25 feet height. The aviary has 120-odd birds belonging to 6-7 species including conures, cockatiels, lovebirds, pheasants, etc. The open aviary keeps the birds free within larger area complete with sand baths, water baths, feeding stations, nesting areas and temperature control measures.“The vision for this new aviary is to introduce people to the wonders of nature, and then they can go out and actually recognize the species of birds that they see,” said Kartikeya Sarabhai, director of Centre for Environment Education (CEE).Institutions such as CEE and Science City organized special events for children such as nature trail, interactive games, film screening, drawing competition, hands-on experiments and special lectures. “I understood the damage polythene bags and plastic bottles cause to environment – be it land or water. I thus have decided not to throw the plastic waste except at designated bins and reduce its usage in daily life whenever possible,” said Mohit Jain, 12, a visitor at Science City.