Around 200 students of different private universities have taken an initiative to set a good example about how to keep the capital’s water bodies clean.
They spent around three hours on Friday cleaning the Buriganga river near Buriganga Second Bridge in Keraniganj with fishing nets from boats.
Though the volunteering students could collect a very little amount of waste from the river, they tried to show how everyone can take part in activities to keep the water bodies of the country clean and free from pollution and encroachment.
“We know this is a very little effort, but it will aware others to keep the river clean and not to pollute it,” said Quazi Taif Sadat, founder of Smile Foundation, a social organisation, which has brought together the student volunteers.
Several studies on the Buriganga have identified sedimentation, encroachment, and disposal of solid waste, sewage and industrial waste into the river as major reasons for its pollution.
Taif said over 200 students from four universities–Bangladesh University, North South University, American International University, Bangladesh and Independent University, Bangladesh–took part in the clean-up campaign, and it would be held every four months.
“Our activities may encourage many other organisations to do similar works,” he said.
Taif said their main vision was to engage more youths in this kind of social work, as a huge number of students and youths were drug addicted. They also plan to turn the campaign into a big movement to save the Buriganga, he added.
Taif also said, “Around 16 volunteers of Smile Foundation have been cleaning Dhanmondi lake once every month since July.”
Tanvir Azad, a volunteer of the foundation, said they would take another initiative to urge the industries not to drop waste into the river.
-With The Daily Star input
