ITC taps schools with green project

The ITC-owned Sunfeast brand, as part of its effort to promote environmental awareness amongst school children, launched the second phase of the "Hara Banao" week nationwide at 441 schools.

The initiative involves the participation of school children in activities like signature campaigns, on slogans like "Say no to plastic" and other such related projects.

The project was aimed at spreading the message of recycling and protecting the environment, the company said in a release issued here today. It would be run through Nature Clubs formed in 441 schools during the first phase of the Sunfeast "Hara Banao" campaign.

School children would distribute items like paper bags, cloth bags and photo frames made by students as part of the "Best out of waste" project undertaken in the first phase. These would be distributed across shopping malls, residential localities and office complexes.

Sunfeast said it had launched the campaign last year to sensitise children about environmental concerns and the need for efforts to achieve an environmental upgrade.

The first phase of the campaign was organised between July and November this year in 442 schools across six cities. Children were made aware of the advantages of using paper bags instead of plastic bags, recycling and various ways of recycling waste. Children were also taught to make things out of waste.

Ravi Naware, divisional chief executive, ITC foods division, said Sunfeast sought to use school children as prime drivers to safeguard the environment and recycle waste.

He said he expected the second phase to take this cause further. The "Hara Banao" initiative was held in more than 100 schools in Mumbai last year, and then extended to 442 schools this year, involving more than 400,000 children.

The company aimed at getting into the Guinness Book of World Records through a novel sapling plantation drive during which 3,00,587 saplings were planted at 18 villages in the Khammam district of Andhra Pradesh in India within a record time of 20 minutes.