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Green Tidings from the Hills: A Message from a Partner
L ieutenant Colonel S. Sridhar, a retired Gunner Officer working as a Management Coordinator for Development Alternatives (DA) at Delhi, brought happy tidings for citizens of Dehra Dun who are grappling with the problems of pollution. Heritage School and RIMC are beneficiaries of the Waste Paper Recycling Technology Package, a technology to clean the environment while converting waste paper (that is often burnt), into useful products, thus saving trees. Suvankar Bose and his colleagues in DA have designed the packages available for urban and rural schools. A community package has also been designed for use by small groups of people. Essentially, the package consists of:· Mechanical Hydra-Pulper· Univat· Coaching Table· Universal Screw Press· Calendaring MachineDA imparts the necessary training to operate the equipment and produce paper. DA has provided Rs. 3.6 Lakhs worth of equipment free of cost to the above-mentioned schools. It is strongly recommended that all large institutions, government owned or otherwise, who churn out large quantities of waste paper - some of which may be confidential - opt for such a package to obviate burning paper and, in turn, convert it into a variety of useful stationery like folders, file covers, assorted greeting cards and objects de art, thus saving revenue every year.
Apart from this package, DA also makes fuel briquettes out of Lantana twigs. Lantana is a highly invasive shrub abundant in the hills. The forest department needs to consider this seriously. It would save trees, provide relatively cheaper fuel for cooking and drying, put the Lantana menace into good use and, most importantly, provide profitable employment to people living on the fringes of our reserved forests and economic prosperity. Another very useful product of DA is the portable water purifier package which will be a boon for the entire hill region of Uttarakhand. Evidently, drinking water here is not being tested, nor is it being treated. DA offers a complete, portable package to locally test the water for any kind of contamination. Accordingly, the water can then be treated as per its needs rather than uniformly treating all of the water with the same chemical even where it is not required. The team of engineers and other qualified people of DA can thus help in rectifying the problems faced by the hill people. Due to lack of education, or the over riding need to keep themselves warm, all cooking in the hills is done inside the house in an open hearth without any chimney or window or ventilator. There has been no change in the last 60 years. People need to crawl on all fours to enter the room then as wood smoke would fill the room. Apparently, such an unhealthy pattern is necessary to maintain the life of the wooden superstructure of the ceiling, as this enhances its life due to smoking over which slates are laid. What is the net result of all this? It risks the life of the people! Almost everyone is prone to TB. Many have failed to clear their medical screening during enrollment. Solving this problem will get only half the work done. The more onerous task ahead is to get the people to accept it at whatever cost. Till such time as these issues are resolved the people in the hills will continue to live in apathy. qBrig. R. S. Rawat (Retd) |
DA,
supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology, has a high degree
of accountability resting on its shoulders. The Waste Paper Recycling
Technology Package is in use in several schools, operated wholly by
students in Delhi as well as in Chief Minister, Mrs. Sheila Dixit’s
Secretariat. Not only do these institutions efficiently dispose their
waste paper without causing any pollution, they also make the children
in particular and people in general, conscious about the need to
preserve our environment.