'Practice what you preach', is easy to say but how far can you go to accomplish your belief? Dr.Radha Damodaran, an Associate Professor of Computer Science Dept at CMS College and a Swachh Bharat Ambassador from Coimbatore has taken her mission to keep the environment clean as her crux.
With her indefatigable efforts, she has ensured that the CMS College produces no landfills; the college is free from any plastic disposals, and hazardous waste that can act as a pollutant to the land. Her effort to bring in “Swatchata” is not just restricted to her professional and personal field. She has gone a step ahead in pursuing her brother for an eco-friendly wedding.
“The groom and the bride, Neelambaran and Deepika, instantly agreed when I suggested a simple, green and ecofriendly wedding than the usual pomp and show. Wedding are an austere affair, so why not maintain austerity with our surrounding too”, exclaimed Mrs.Radha.
As amusing as it sounds the entire wedding had no non bio-degradeable wastes to dispose to pile up the landfills. In a one-of-a kind wedding, the entire decor was done using bio degradable materials. No plastic, no chemical and no hazardous materials was used to create the decor, instead fresh flowers, leaves and twigs were used to hold it strong.
Coming back to the dining hall which is the regarded to be the important part of big fat Indian weddings, Prof Radha has ensured that no non bio-degradeable materials enters the serving area. It's indeed a decade or more since weddings stopped serving water in stainless glasses. Whether it is for serving a Gulab Jamun, Payasam or water, it's the plastic cups that are widely used.
In this wedding, the cutlery had no plastics instead steel tumblers were used to serve water. The banana leaves which were used for food serving and the waste food was segregated immediately after the lunch sessions and were used for vermi- composting. Usually, the bins would be dumped with wastes of all forms in a wedding hall but here surprisingly the bins were empty!
The entire waste segregation process during both the events - reception and the wedding was organised by "No dumping" NGO from the city which strives hard to achieve 100% waste segregation in the city. The NGO has been educating the residents on segregation of wastes at source and has successfully transformed and involved several apartments in the city towards source segregation.
Even the return gifts were meticulously planned as the bags were made of papers instead of plastic material.
In a world, where people do not bother to spend lakhs of money for a one-day wedding affair, such eco-friendly weddings set great examples for the younger generation and their families to act responsibly and do their part for the environment they live in.