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This school boasts of zero waste campus
Vadodara: It is a non-descript village located in Panchmahal district and most of its tribal residents are barely educated. But, the residents of Kakanpur village know and understand the terminology ‘zero waste campus’ very well. A boys’ hostel in the village has become the state’s first campus that doesn’t give out any waste. All the waste generated inside the campus is put to productive use.
Not a single drop of
water or garbage goes out of the premises of Vasant Ashram hostel that
is home to 70 primary and secondary students — all tribals. The hostel
was constructed last year for providing accommodation to the tribal
students, who came to study in Mayur Patel Chhatralaya run by Adhyatma
Vidya Mandir. “We learnt that a hostel campus was going to be
constructed in the village about two years ago. So, we approached the
management with the idea of
constructing a zero waste campus and they immediately accepted it,”
said Shashi Shah, trustee of Engineering Sewa Trust (EST).
EST,
which is an informal group of engineers, prepared designs and extended
technical help for constructing the campus that started functioning
last year. EST focused on building an environment friendly campus that
would use every drop of water and waste produced inside the premises.
Here, the rainwater is also stored in a tank and used for daily chores and for recharging underground water table.
“We
have constructed a special chamber that stores all the waste generated
by human beings, cattle, agriculture and kitchen garbage. The waste is
allowed to decompose inside and then it is used for generating gas. All
the food is cooked from the gas produced in our gas plant. The slurry
is processed in the vermicompost plant for making bio-fertiliser,” Shah
told TOI. Even foodgrains and vegetables are grown on the campus. The
school authorities are very happy with the eco-friendly concept and are
planning to replicate the model on their other campuses across the
country. “Our aim is to help under-privileged students and give them
quality education. The zero waste campus is an extension of our motto
to help the society. We will try to do similar activity on our other 79
campuses located in different parts of the country,” said K C Patel,
trustee of Adhyatma Vidya Mandir.
Source: Times of India