Goodwill Harmony Co-op Housing society felicitated by Athak Foundation Mulund

Celebrating Success in Plastic Waste Elimination

Athak foundation in Mulund is a volunteer organization which focuses on eliminating plastic waste from going to the landfills. It also focusses on various waste management initiatives. Athak Foundation is founded by Mrs Asmita Gokhale of Mulund.

As part of the plastic elimination initiative the foundation works with various housing societies in Mulund and adjoining areas including Airoli in Navi Mumbai to collect plastic waste. The volunteers from each society, collect plastic waste from their society.  On the last Sunday of every month, they deposit the same at various collection points. A vehicle then picks up this plastic waste from all these collection points. This plastic is then transported to Athak's affiliate in Pune where the collected plastic is reconverted to High Speed Diesel.

Athak Foundation has been instrumental in reaching out over 10,000 school students and incorporating them into the program as well as over 100 Cooperative Housing Societies who have been actively involved in the Monthly Collection Drives.

50 Months Milestone of plastic collection:

On 26th September, the foundation completed 50 months of plastic collection. As part of this great milestone, Athak foundation organized a small felicitation ceremony where some of the selected housing societies were recognized for their good participation. They were handed over certificates of appreciation. Goodwill Harmony CHS in Sector 19, Airoli, Navi Mumbai was felicitated in this function. Mr Neil Songgadan and Mr Dinesh Yawale (self) collected the certificate on Societies behalf. Mr Neil has taken great initiatives in spreading the awareness about this plastic collection. 

Such appreciation will greatly help in encouraging many more housing societies to come forward and join this great initiative to eliminate waste plastic and reduce pollution. 

You can get more details about Athak Foundation at below link

https://www.athakfoundationtrust.org/about.html

Read my other posts in my blog Airoli News around me

Debris, Garbage dumping issue in the Mangroves area in Airoli

Debris, Garbage dumping issue in the Mangroves area in Airoli

Big Problem - Debris and Garbage in mangroves Airoli

 Airoli has vast area of mangroves which adds to its beauty and makes it look very green. This area comes under reserved areas as per Government rules. But the residents  and the contractors of Airoli are spoiling this beautiful areas by dumping construction debris and garbage in the creek along the Patni road and also in other areas. This results in massive pollution and site looks really horrible. 

Reasons:

As per per my understanding, following are the reasons for such dumping.

- Lack of awareness amongst the citizens as to how and where to dump such debris and garbage

- No NMMC specified area for such dumping

- Reliance on the contractors to dump the debris from construction work in flats

- No awareness about how it is polluting and destroying the mangroves

- No supervision and penalty for such dumping

Suggestions:

Suggestions to NMMC for resolving these issues.

Raise awareness about how the dumping is destroying the mangrove and creating lots of pollution which in turn will harm all humans.

Provide a designated place where such debris and garbage can be dumpled and the NMMC needs to provide facility to pickup them on alternate day basis. This will ensure that residents do not throw it anywhere else

Put up a 6 feet high metal nets similar to the area near the sewage treatment center in Airoli. This will prevent people from throwing anything on the creek-side. 

Put posters to raise awareness and also mention about the penalties. On these post instructions about right way of dumping these items.

Increase the supervision of this area and if possible install CCTV  cameras to monitor. But there should be a control room monitoring the same with a rapid action force, else CCTV installation will be useless.

Hold meetings in each housing society for the members and its contractors to raise awareness about this issue and let them know the right ways of dumping such articles. This will greatly help to avoid this

Beautify some of the areas like the Ganesh visarjan lake and put a temple also in this area so that people will not litter around it.

Hope with these suggestions Airoli will become a better neighborhood. 

Read my other posts in my blog Airoli News around me

Goodwill Harmony Co-op Housing society felicitated by Athak Foundation Mulund