NGO pitches in for plastic-free Margazhi fest

Namma Ooru Foundation, a city-based NGO, started a campaign #masillamargazhi to reach out to the sabha managements, artists and music admirers in the city.

“During kutcheries, mostly caterers serve food and water for artists and audience. They use plastic water bottles. If we cut down the plastic bottles provided to artists only, we will reduce a huge amount of plastic waste going to bins,” P Natarajan, founder of Namma Ooru Foundation said.

He added that every major sabhas in the city organise at least 200 kutcheries during the season and generate more than 3,000 plastic water bottles each throughout the season.

The NGO has a target of bringing at least 10 sabhas into the campaign and has convinced three of them, whose managements have already signed pledges against the usage of plastic water bottles. The sabhas are requested to use stainless steel bottles instead of plastic bottles. “If we convince 10 sabhas, we can easily prevent 30,000 plastic water bottles from being dumped into garbage bins,” Natarajan said.

The campaign is being promoted on social media and volunteers are reaching out to the audience to asking them to bring water bottles from home. Margazhi season starts on December 17.

Meanwhile, Arkay Ramakrishnan, founder of Arkay Convention Centre, said that he has stopped giving plastic water bottles to artists even before the music season started. “Immediately after Namma Ooru Foundation approached us with the idea, we have changed. From November 22, we have been serving drinking water in steel bottles,” he added.

When asked about the artists’ response to the new initiative, Ramakrishnan said that the artists understand the issue and they are also supporting.

“We conduct around 250 concerts during the season and every week we were throwing hundreds of plastic bottles into bins. We were also hesitant to use stainless bottles initially, but now we are seeing the improvements,” he said.