Netizens ideate to combat plastic

Hyderabad: The school and college students, startups, NGOs and institutions in plastic waste management space ideated to combat plastic here on Wednesday. Kalpana Ramesh, who leads the water initiatives at Society for Advancement of Human Endeavour (SAHE), said, "Plastic pollution is a huge menace to our water bodies and ground water contamination.

They make way to the water bodies through hybrid storm channels and littering, which in turn clogs up downstream, creating unhygienic conditions, breeding ground for mosquitoes, release of Greenhouse gases and lake eutrophication due to massive urbanisation.

We have removed 10 tonnes of plastic with 32 lake shore community clean ups and govt has helped us to remove more than 100 tonnes of plastic from eight-acre Kudikunta Lake. It became pertinent for us to work with NGOs to help replace plastic.

We teamed up with Accelerate SD for Ideathon, to work towards strategically replacing plastic that harm our water bodies, health and environment. We will collaborate further on making lakes eco-sensitive zones". Replace Plastic Ideathon came up with 300 innovative ideas.

The organisers shortlisted 25 teams to transform the ideas into scalable action across the city. Replace Plastic Ideathon is a joint initiative by Ramky Enviro Engineers Limited, AccelerateSD & SAHE.