Every year the students of the Zilla Parishad High School in Chintalkunta, Gadwal district, Telangana, participate in an annual sapling planting drive. Even on their birthdays, the students are encouraged to plant a tree. These seedlings are planted around the school and are usually grown in plastic bags.
In March 2020, Srija A, a class 9 student of the school was digging the soil to plant a sapling but to her shock and dismay, she found a plastic bag after having dug a few feet underground.
Speaking of the non-eco-friendly nature of plastics, Srija laments, “I immediately realised this was from one of the earlier sapling-drives. I did not want this to continue every year so I started to think of a sustainable solution to raise seedlings.”
After a few months of research, the 14-year-old innovated a biodegradable planter made from groundnut shell pulp. Here’s how she got her entire school to stop using plastics for tree-plantation drives.
