Coimbatore: City-based NGO Siruthuli wants all hands on deck to help it accomplish the second phase of the PET bottle collection project. This time, to fill the bottles to build a toilet.

In commemoration with the theme for Environment Day 2018, `Beat Plastic Pollution’, and with a mission to up-cycle plastic that cannot be recycled, the NGO plans to build a toilet using these bottles instead of bricks. The NGO will check the technical feasibility of the project and put it forward to the Coimbatore Commissioner, said Siruthali PRO Shruthi Suresh,

“We had two aims with this project,” says Siruthali managing trustee Vanitha Mohan. “One was to collect the bottles, the second was to make people aware of how much plastic they are using.”

The first phase began on June 5 and concluded on June 10. It involved collecting PET bottles from various places like apartments, hospitals and malls etc. It even set up kiosks for PET bottle collection in many places like the Brookefields Mall.

“We collected more than 5,000 bottles in a week. So imagine how much is generated within the entire city,” said Shruthi.

Currently, the NGO is inviting volunteers to fill up the PET bottles with mud so that they can be used for construction. “We plan to build the toilet by the end of the month,” she said. It would be a 4×5 toilet, where the walls made of mud-filled PET bottles.

One toilet cubicle would require 2,200-2,300 bottles which can last for more than 500 years. “It would take 4-5 minutes for a person to fill up a bottle, so even one hour of volunteering would be extremely useful to us,” added Shruthi. Up cycling of these bottles would mean lesser numbers ending up in landfills.

To volunteer, one can visit the Noyyal Life Centre at Siruthali Sungam By-pass road between 10 am and 5 pm till June 24. For further details, phone: 98946 31551 or mail: [email protected]