Clean sweep post fest: Eco socs of Delhi University pull up their socks

Students who're part of their colleges' environment clubs and societies are conducting cleanup drives in the wake of thefest season at DU's North Campus.

Come fest season and the North Campus of Delhi University gets littered with crumpled packets of chips, plastic bottles and other waste. Lakhs of students gather in different colleges to participate in the fest and leave behind a trail of trash. Although the varsity is regularly cleaned by staff, who sweep through the campus and its surroundings, members of the eco socs across colleges felt it was not enough.

Students of Miranda House collect waste during a cleanliness drive after a college fest.

“We feel that just relying on them is not enough, especially due to the massive littering in our college after the annual fest last week,” shares Angela Nagarajan, a second-year student of BA (Hons) English, Daulat Ram College and a member of the eco club, Dhara. “Hence, we organised a clean-up drive last Friday,” she adds.

Advocating for cleanliness and appropriate disposal of waste, the students at Kirori Mal College held a trash collection drive. Somil Singhania, a final-year student of BSc (Hons) Botany and president of the college’s eco club, Bhoomi, shares, “Right now, the footfall on campus is at an all-time high due to events, so there is bound to be a lot of garbage. In February itself, we picked up 110kg of trash from our college, in collaboration with the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD)… Cleaning up doesn’t mean we throw things in dustbins and forget about it; the ecological impact of this waste generation must be considered.”

Similarly, the students of Miranda House’s environment society, MH Vatavaran, have been scaling up their efforts by not just collecting waste but trying to upcycle it. “We picked up plastic waste in and around our college premises in a collection drive last week. Our aim is twofold: to use this as an educational workshop for the masses and upcycle the plastic waste into bags, files and other products,” says Kanupriya Agarwal, a final-year student of BA (Hons) Economics and president of the society, adding, “Our college is our home, we must make sure it’s clean, fest season or not...We’re planning a mega clean-up drive in collab with other colleges, by the end of this month.”

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