Bottles for Change

Bottles For Change: Inter-house competition at DPGA, New Panvel
25th September, 2019 – 17th February, 2020

“Bottles for Change” was an exclusive initiative under Creative Activity Service with a view to bring about massive awareness campaign within the school. The IBDP1 students started their ground-work in reaching out to Bisleri India, making posters, pamphlets, etc. for an awareness drive within the school taking up this initiative as their CAS project.

Mr. Abhijeet Kakare, representative from Bisleri, India (CSR Division), spoke to the school students about the benefits of plastic and the importance of recycling the material. It is estimated that India generates 9.46 million tonnes of plastic waste annually, which, if not recycled and reused, finds its way into our oceans, endangering the marine lives and causing environmental hazards. A plan was made to have an inter-house competition across grades 5 to 12 to collect used plastic bottles, wrappers and other plastic materials from households, which were then to be handed over to Bisleri for recycling.

The largest collection of plastic material was done by Emerald House, followed by Ruby Housein the second position. The competition was concluded on 17th February, 2020. Students of all the four houses collectively contributed around 30 kg of plastic wastes.

Here is what an IBDP student said-
On 25th September, we at DPGA, Panvel were honoured to have Mr. Abhijit Kakade, from the CSR department of Bisleri International Pvt. Ltd., in our midst. Spearheaded in our school by Anika Tandon, we, as her classmates of IBDP1, in lieu of our CAS activities, took up “Bottles for Change” initiative as an exciting new intra-school competition. After Mr. Kakade’s eye-opening session on the various benefits and uses of recycled plastic, we were overwhelmed to see how much our students contribute to this collection!

The competition was exciting, and we successfully achieved our targets and disposed huge amounts of single use plastics for recycling. This activity made us realise how as ‘change makers’ we can contribute our share to save the planet.

Lynette George
IBDP 1 Student
Batch 2019-2021