The Baijnath sub-division in Kangra district of Himachal Pradesh showed a unique commitment for ‘Swachhta Abhiyaan’ this month, directly linking it environment— from clearing harmful weeds to reusing plastic waste.

The first green initiative was to uproot Parthenium (Congress grass) from kuhls, bunds aside agriculture fields and the common paths in villages, which was taken up by folks in 64 panchayats in the subdivision in campaign mode last week.

Seventy per cent of volunteers for the campaign aimed at clearing this harmful weed were women.

“Parthenium can be seen everywhere in villages. It not only cuts down on productivity of agriculture crops, but leads to several diseases, including skin problem, irritation in eyes and it contaminates the milk of animals too. So we thought of starting a drive to clear the villages of Parthenium on 2 October for a week by motivating youth,” shared Sub Divisional Magistrate, Baijnath, Vikas Shukla.

He said around 100 volunteers were involved in each Panchayat for uprooting this weed. “We provided the gloves, head covers and masks to volunteers, who took part in this activity, to protect them from ill-effects effects of the grass,” Shukla said. The grass so uprooted was properly disposed of.

“The drive has to be carried out three years in a row to see that Parthenium does not come up again,” he said, calling for the need of such campaigns in the entire state to benefit villagers, particularly farmers.

The funds for the green cause were used from the collection of Green Tax— imposed by the Special Area Development Authority (SADA) of Bir Billing (international paragliding site) uphill Baijnath three months ago for vehicles.

“We used Rs 32,000 for this drive from the Green Tax to facilitate volunteers in Panchayats,” said Shukla.

Shukla, who has been a pro-active officer, has continuously been encouraging the environment-friendly activities in Baijnath—His recent initiative to promote the reuse of waste plastic water bottles by filling them with waste soft polythene bags too is picking up.

“The trainings on reuse of waste bottles were given by a foreigner (Italian)in Bir. The bottles so filled with waste polythene bags harden so much that they can be used in construction as bricks. One litre bottle (empty) can carry 80- 90 empty polythene bags (like milk bags) inside. Such bottles used in construction give ornamental look to the structure,” the SDM said.

He said one such ornamental wall of waste plastic bottles filled with waste polythene bags has been made in Kyuri Panchayat.

“We have so far purchased 1600 such bottles (bricks). The SADA purchases such bottles at fixed rate (Rs 2 to 10 per bottle depending on size) from Green Tax, with arrangement of giving it to different departments, through indent for use in construction,” he said.

The SDM said this would not only help in protecting environs by reusing the waste bottles and polythene bags (which can’t be destroyed), but also help the youth earn.