These green volunteers from Hyderabad clean up after your celebrations

If you want a clean city don’t ask for change, be the change. This is the mantra of the The Green Nest, a volunteer organization for the youth, whose green volunteers make it their mission to clean up after major events held in the public spaces of Hyderabad.

 Events and festivals around the world create enormous amounts of waste. While many groups these days organize walks and runs for many causes, these events generate a lot of waste that ends up littering public spaces despite the best efforts of organizers. Clearing waste and removing the debris of such celebrations is very important for a clean city say the volunteers at Green Nest.

So it is that when hundreds or thousands of people gather at public events, and generate all kinds of paper and plastic waste, the crowd is often dotted with Green Nest volunteers armed with gloves and black garbage pickup bags picking up after everybody else.

 ‘’At the end of every event we see a lot of leaflets, tissue papers, disposable glasses, pet bottles, and tetra packs thrown everywhere. This is where we get into action,” says 20-year-old BTech student Chandra Lekha S.

 Chandra Lekha was a fan of Green Nest for nearly a year, following its activities through its Facebook page for nearly a year. “And then I started teaching students in government schools on Sundays. My love for the environment made me join Green Nest, and I am doing both roles right now.” Some of the activities that she is involved in with the volunteer group right now include a happy bin program, which involves installing dustbins with messages that enlighten and inspire other people to take up the goal of a clean Hyderabad.

 Composed entirely of volunteers, Green Nest doesn’t charge event organizers any fee for their clean up efforts, as their only goal is to see public spaces returned to a pristine state after major events.  

 Madhusudan, an IT professional and Green Nest volunteer says: “We don’t get involved in any commercial events. We volunteer our time for social events and events that promote a cause. We work for those events which are organized to promote society's interest at large”.

 According to Jutla Nikhil Sai Chandra, one of the student volunteers, the group has thus far partnered with such events as the Airtel Hyderabad Marathon, the Rotathon, the Rainbow Walkathon, and most recently the Pinkathon.

 While the organization does not involve with private events such as business conferences and banquets, it also believes in building awareness about Green Banqueting Design, and addressing issues such as minimizing energy and material consumption and proper waste management at such events. To this end, the organization also carries out awareness-building activities around popular conference and banquet venues in the city.

 The organization promotes a number of green banqueting solutions such as the use of e-invites to reduce paper consumption; use of green conference materials including recycled paper, good-on-one-side (GOOS) paper for printing and photocopying and wood-free, polymer or plastic pencils for writing; plastic-free name tags that can be collected by organizers at the end of events for recycling; and organic mementos and green gifts as event giveaways.

 They also advocate the use of event venues with explicit green strategies, and the use of eco-friendly, zero-waste rental equipment for events.

 Besides cleaning drives and environmental awareness-building events, Green Nest also volunteers its time for teaching underprivileged children and helping them explore opportunities for a brighter future.

 As Nikhil says, “The main reason to be part of The Green Nest is to make a difference to society be it by educating under privileged children or making the city clean and green. It is our responsibility to take the initiative if we want to change the city.”