Students suggest green solutions at film festival

Pune: If the authorities of the Cummins College of Engineering for Women do away with the covering page of assignments submitted by students, the institution would have collectively saved 1.6 lakh sheets of paper at the end of the year. If a leaky tap in another college is fixed, the institution can save up to 720 litre water in a day. Simple ideas that could end up having a significant impact on the environment were presented by students from 17 colleges at the ongoing Kirloskar Vasundhara International Film Festival (KVIFF).
“Most of the students carried out electricity, water and garbage audits in their respective colleges. By conducting surveys and interviews with people on campus, they came up with some very practicable solutions,” said Anirudh Chaoji, one of the experts who oversee the Kirloskar Vasundhara eco-rangers programme.
A conference of the students involved in the programme was organised during the day. The possible solutions suggested by the students will now have to be implemented on the campus within a calendar year. At the end of the year, they will have to come up with a quantified assessment of the impact they were able to have, he added.
The solutions suggested by the students include rainwater harvesting, using solar power, finding alternatives to plastic materials generated in college canteens, waste segregation and recycling the massive volumes of paper that is inevitably generated, Chaoji said.
“One vital point raised by the students was that before they can go about making these changes, they need to motivate and mobilise the college management and administrative staff. If the students act by themselves, they can have a limited impact, but if changes are made at an institutional level, the impact is significant,” Chaoji said, adding that in order to do so, the students provided a monetary figure in terms of the savings involved.