Gurgaon : The combined energies of more than 3000 students from 80+ colleges and higher institutions across the country, at the MDI, Gurgaon campus have found out ways to mitigate the disposal of ‘pet bottle’ waste. Facilitated by Volunteer4India (V4I) organisation, these students have traced the journey of the plastic waste generated in their localities and have chalked out plans to manage the waste through effective coordination with different stake holders.

These students joined forces through Beyond Karma – a social case study competition organised by MDI Gurgaon. This youth-connect initiative is an integral part of Imperium’18, the annual management festival of MDI Gurgaon, organised in association with Samaritans, MDI.

As part of the case study (Where is my Pet Going), students from reputed institutions like IIMs, NITs, FMS, IIFT, MICA conducted field studies in their respective localities. Out of these, 7 finalised teams presented their white papers at MDI before the expert panel.

As a pilot, around 200 students will visit condominiums, apartments, residential societies, shopping malls, food joints and corporate houses across Gurgaon, where they intend to identify the current state of PET segregation and recycling and raise awareness about the process of recycling.

The primary intention of this project on the one hand, is to let the citizens be responsive and consciously put efforts and on the other hand, make corporates responsible towards the cause

These volunteers will further be trained towards the process of effective disposals of pet bottles; they will be monitoring the process in their respective localities and will coordinate with local rag pickers to ensure that even they follow the segregation process with the necessary due diligence. This intention is identify the bottlenecks in implementation and then work out a plan to address that.

The initial target is to implement this in at least 25-30 condominiums, 10 corporates and 5 shopping malls. The students will further run citizen awareness campaigns in these areas. The pilot activity will run for 45 days in Gurgaon.

As an outcome of the activation, MDI and Volunteer4India will organise a conference where corporates, relevant government departments and citizen forums will be brought together and MDI will present the findings of their activation, for them to take notice.

The objective is to evaluate the current state of on- ground implementation of a brand’s Extended Producer Responsibility and makes brands to get responsible about it, ensuring almost all Pet bottles become a part of the circular economy.

Skills4Change, the skill development wing of Volunteer4India, is building influencer opinion and directing policy makers and consumer attention to the risks of the so-called “take, make, dispose” linear economy model which societies are sub-consciously adopting, that is leading to worrying environmental problems.