The best idea springs from ‘trash’

Against the backdrop of Gandhi Jayanti, students of Mumbai University have come up with an inspired idea to promote social change in the most unique way. They plan to segregate the waste generated in all 650 colleges in the city and sell them to raise funds for BMC schoolchildren.

The brainchild of a group of students from Welingkar Institute of Management, the proposed project won the prize for best idea in a contest organised at the Fort campus for B-school students under the Mumbai University New Initiative for Joint Action Now (MUNIJAN) initiative.

Students Anjani Bansal, Divya Doshi, Sameer Bendale, Sunil Chawre and Suraj Deshpande will now spread the message within the 6.5 lakh-strong student community spread across all city colleges to help them in their endeavour. As per the proposal, all colleges will be provided with four separate bins for dumping paper, plastic, organic material and other garbage and students will be sensitised on how to segregate waste.

Student Anjani Bansal said, “We will be dividing the MMR region into 26 zones and all colleges in each zone will work together.” According to the students, if all 6.5 lakh students collect 1/2 kg of paper waste every month, it would add up to earnings of Rs32.5 lakh per month.”

The students now want assistance from the varsity so that commercial enterprises come forward to buy the waste that will be collected at the colleges.