“I would be happy if I could turn one person into a zero-waste person. If even one person could proudly say they are zero-waste, that would be great.
With this thought in mind, Father Prasanth Palakkappillil, a Catholic priest and former principal of Sacred Heart College in Thevara, Kochi, Kerala, is on a solo bike trip across India. He plans to travel through the country, meet people and communities, and exchange ideas on how to solve waste management problems through sustainable goals.
“Travelling and exploring has been a long pending dream for me. Being a development activist, I am in this journey combining things that are very close to my heart like the Sustainable Development Goals for waste management. I will try to meet different people to find out about the green initiatives taken by them. My focus is to see how the waste is managed. I think this is a practical point on which everyone can work together so that the planet and resources are clean and not polluted,” he said indianexpress.com Over the phone earlier this week.
The priest, who belongs to the Carmelites Order of Mary Immaculate (CMI) under the Syro-Malabar Church, began his journey from Kochi on August 10 and is expected to travel through Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Bengal, Bihar, Punjab and will travel. way. Before the North-East region ends by 31 October. “It is unplanned and not very elaborate. I hope to meet my teammates and friends and spend time exploring places with them wherever possible,” he said.
ns Prashanth has been a renowned environmentalist in Kerala and has led many programs and activities on conservation. His solo bike tour also follows the theme specified by the United Nations for the year 2021: the International Year of Peace and Trust. He hopes to spread the message of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan and Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat programme.
He said, “I want to tell one thing to the people that waste management can be followed through simple practices like segregation of waste, which is a very old lesson but still not practiced today. Has been completed.”
“I think it is important to protect the environment for everyone to live a happy and healthy life. We should be concerned about the contamination of air, soil and water and cause of diseases. We need to live a healthy life. A healthy planet is needed.”
(Riya Joseph is a trainee of indianexpress.com based in Thiruvananthapuram)
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