Some villages and churches in Manipur celebrated Christmas, the greatest festival of Christians in an environment friendly manner this time.
This was evident in Vakho, a small village having around 300 households located in Manipur’s Senapati district headquarters about 60 km north of Imphal where one can witnessed well crafted beautiful Christmas tree made out of waste plastic bottles instead of buying costly Christmas decorative materials. Such magical tree glittering away to its fullest glory during the night as one passes through the village.
According to Senapati based Herald Today facebook page, Vakho Youth & Students organisation (VYSO) members collected around 700 waste plastic bottles dumped at various places of Senapati to make a beautiful Christmas tree for Vakho village within four days.
The idea is to encourage the recycling habits in the village, according to President Thailu LP of VYSO. As a graphic designer and a photographer by profession I feel that plastic bottles could be used as decorative items, Thailu said when contacted.
The credit of the humble initiative goes to seven active members of VYSO, he felt.
Besides the volunteers of VYSO routinely takes up cleaning activities in and around the village and Senapati town four/five times a year coinciding with the beginning or ending of the seasons.
Interestingly some churches in Ukhrul town, 84 km north of the state capital also uses waste plastic bottles, compact discs and all other used materials as decorative materials in a move to make sure that no trees should be cut down for Christmas tree this time,a resident of hill town said.
Manipur which has 37 Reserve Forests covering an area of 984.25 sq km, stood first among all north-eastern states in protecting its reserve forest areas, according to India’s State of Forest Report 2017. Manipur has also increased 263 sq km of forest cover since 2015.